To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

DON JUAN
CANTO XVII.

DON JUAN stood upon the quarter deck —I'm not quite certain "quarter deck" is right, And I dare say I'll get it in the neck From the dear youths who teach me how to write; But then, it sounds so nautical — "quarter deck"! We must have local color: if not quite Exact, why, many a name even critics venerate Has been a worse sailor than I. At any rate,

On some kind of a deck Don Juan stood; In these new-fangled steamers I'm not sure That any of the good old words hold good — Only the lurch and seasickness endure. But Juan had sailed many seas and could Have passed through tempests with no qualms to cure, Nor any loss of peace of mind, or diet. However, at this time, the sea was quiet.

It was a night Lorenzo might have praised To Jessica, when those dear scamps sat purring Of Dido and of Cressid, while they lazed Under the stars and heard the low winds stirring,

And gurgled in each other's ears, and gazed Into each other's eyes, like doves conferring, Until that music broke upon their ears That mingled with the music of the spheres —

That strain the world shall never hear again, Nor cease to hear forever. Such a night The quivering liner with its thousand men Raced through, a goaded, maddened meteorite Across the vast of calm. There was not then One cloud to blot the innumerable light That made the still impeccable sky a splendour Of armied worlds grand in supreme surrender.

Low in the North blazed sevenfold the Bear, Like outpost angels frontiered toward the Nought; Far southward on the sea-line rose a-flare The beacon of enormous Formalhaut; From east to west, from Rigel to Altair, The Milky Way arched like the Master's thought Of what he yet will raise in cosmic masonry To span the void, and stud with stellar blasonry.

For all along that arch of dream there flew The pennons of the princes of the night, The guidons of that infinite review; Prone on the very waves outstretched, the might

Of huge Orion heaved itself to view; And higher toward the Pole the yellow light Of Norse Capella signalled overseas To where, below the clustered Pleiades,

Aldebaran, a fiery heart, replied With flame that like a shout o'erleaped the expanse; And higher toward the zenith the red pride Of Algol, the star-demon, flared askance; And higher still, in full midheaven enskied, Cassiopeia crowned the high advance And seemed to pause a moment on heaven's crest Ere she descended. Further in the West

The glory of Deneb made Cygnus kindle; And Vega, further south, whom sailors love, Serene and large, made starlets seem to spindle — Vega, the lady of summer nights. Above There was no moon to make the star-host dwindle;No planets either — 'twas the 30th ofSeptember, 1899; that night (See the ephemeris) there were none in sight.

But Juan didn't know planets from stars; He only knew that under that far glory He felt a greatness more than loves or wars Could bring — and both had mingled with his story;

Of both he knew the garlands and the scars (And of most other matters transitory); But here the shadow of the Eternal fell About his soul, which greatened there to dwell.

The calm was in his heart as on the sea. The Lone wherein we voyage none knows whither; The sound of waters under the ship's lee Confused his senses in a pleasant blither And loosed his soul in dreamland … But see! There on the starboard bow what light comes hither? Just under Vega? Is it a new star? Or some ship's light that hails us from afar?

Just then a fellow-passenger strolled up With "That's Fire Island. Well, the trip was short. To-morrow we shall be at Del's to sup. I wonder whether Dewey is in port. And Lipton — do you think he'll lift the cup? Thank Fortune, we'll have news soon of some sort. I've such a next-day's thirst for information, I'd even be content to readThe Nation.'

"Do you think war's declared on the Boers yet? …" And Juan sighed and wished it were — internally — And all his dreams dropped with his cigarette.O'er the ship's side. He was bored infernally,

But covered with a smile his inward fret (His conscience wasn't so violent as to spurn a lie), And after some discussion of Fashoda Went to the smoking-room for Scotch and soda.

The fellow-passenger was a worthy man — A several-millions'-worth-y-man, — had travelled Widely (once in his own yacht to Japan) And many knotty social coils unravelled; Knew just which colored ties were under ban; Cavilled at all at which his set had cavilled; And never had one notion in his cranium More his own than his florist's last geranium.

His father's name was Smith, and later Smythe; He was Van Smythe, completely Knickerbockered. His father had begun with spade and scythe; He from his cradle had been coaxed and cockered. His father had the wit to take his tithe And wed a widow who was richly tochered, But never quite got into good society; He belonged to its most select variety.

He held within the hollow of his hand The World — in little — that's to say, a wallet; Gave midnight suppers delicately planned (In this he was assisted by his valet);

Knew how to drive (and tie) a four-in-hand; Had wines that made a Cæsar of his palate; Owned everything there was on earth to own, And nothing that was really his own.

Nothing of which his thought had been a part, To make it more than tatters caught on trees. Rugs, Chippendale, Johannesberger, Art — He paid for them but never made them his. His dogs, perhaps, were nearest to his heart; But he had houses, horses, all there is. And, what was most of all to Juan's liking, A wife whose beauty was supremely striking.

She was a slight, red-headed type, With eyes like sealskin and a cheek like ermine. Soft, lush, and deep; her lips were overripe, If anything — but who would dare determine? She fenced, rode, flirted, smoked — had hit the pipe, They say — (but all looked dainty in her mien) — For Ellinor (her Christian name was Ellinor) Had twenty-seven different kinds of hell in her.

How many kinds of heaven I dare not say, —The heavens that women have are so improper; And I am still determined that this lay Shall not at moral fences come a cropper.

True, cardboard mottoes are not much my way But, as Catullus says, "Who cares a copper?" I still maintain my purpose highly moral; As for my methods, well, we will not quarrel.

I stand with Shakespeare, not to speak of Solomon; My critics stand with Bowdler, Harlan, Comstock, And though that kind may look supremely solemn on Occasion, they're at the bottom but a rum stock. A man may be a virtuous though a jolly man, And wise without that mummery that benumbs talk, That dull, pretentious, preternatural gravity Those Tartuffes wear to cloak their own depravity.

These self-made bishops of the phallic crozier, Who roll their eyes up till they show the whites (Why isn't that an indecent exposure?) These ticklish gentlemen who make war on tights, Gloat on the coy shop-windows of the hosier, And peep through their own window blinds o' nights To watch Susannah bare her dimpled knees — And then report the case to the police.

Susannah's story is quite Biblical; But Ellinor Van Smythe's is much more modest —

Modern, I mean to say — but, after all, It's much the same. Their manners were the broadest! Our lives and gowns have a more decent fall, —Though "modest" may too often mean but "bodiced." But I know one or two whom these same bodices Alone can differentiate from goddesses.

And Ellinor Van Smythe in Pre-Byzantian Days, would have been as "noble and antique" (I leave out "nude" because it spoils the scansion) As the most natural and uncinctured Greek. Indeed, here in New York, in her own mansion, All tailor-made and boned, 'twere far to seek A grace more lithe, free, undulant than hers, Even in Olympus' half-clad roisterers.

The coquetry in her look was not all mocking; 'Twas half the caged thing's startle. Born a roamer She found escape of soul in being shocking. Witty she was, and wicked; knew her Omar, Browning and Kipling, — yet was no blue-stocking—(By the way, what a curious misnomer!) All the blue-stockings ever I knew write Wore stockings of the most indecent white.)

When I say "wicked," I don't mean to say Wicked in any sense of reprobation;There was no malice mingled with her clay (Unless in the sly French signification); She was only wicked in that charming way That drives good women to exasperation, Because it puts them at a disadvantage. (Men won't take trouble in this complaisant age.)

But she was serious under her frivolity, And in her maddest moods a mild restraint Gave to her merriment a patrician quality As far from "sportiness" as from constraint. Her joyousness was not the least like jollity, — St. Anthony had been ten times a saint, Could he have seen this queen-rogue of Eve's daughters Pass like a sunbeam wantoning on the waters.

And not have thrown his scourges in the Nile And whistled Heaven down the wind, to follow And win, perhaps, the guerdon of her smile. For, after all, those dreams of his were hollow —He knew they had no substance all the while — You see, St. Anthony was no Apollo, And, as for tempting him, why, pretty women Weren't so hard up for love as to take him in.

What, that lean, scrawny, knock-kneed, raw-boned lubber, Whose very fleas well-nigh gave up the ghost, A lady-killer? Why, 'twould take a scrubber Like Hercules to scrape him down, almost; And nothing less than burning India-rubber To clear the air! And all that for the boast Of conquering a Saint? No, not even vanity Could stomach such a satire on humanity.

Were there no gilded youth in Alexandria, No Alciphrons nor Alcibiades, To satisfy the taste for polyandria? I can't believe such fairy tales as these; No, not if Raphael, Leonardo, Andrea And Michael Angelo combined should please To paint that dear old subject for the nones, And sanctify its lechery with its bones.

No, either all the painters and those crusty Old chroniclers were guying all the while, And Anthony was really young and lusty And groomed and garbed the better to beguile; Or else those girls of his were dim and dusty Visions born of accumulated bile, Because the poor old man had satyriasis (You take your choice, whichever way your bias is).

Well, I'm not Anthony — thank God for that! Though he's in Heaven, and I'm — where I expected. He's sitting with the angels, singing flat; And I'm in hell, and not half so dejected As you'd suppose, considering "where I'm at." I'm rather glad that I was not elected And foreordained to Heaven before earth's testing, I find that hell's so much more interesting.

In the First Canto and two-hundredth stanza, If, gentle reader, you'll turn back to see How I began this famous old romanza, When I was something less than thirty-three And still as much on earth as Sancho Panza Though not so certain I was there as he —You'll find I told the critics then (plague take them!) This poem should be Epic as they make them.

Twelve books — I've changed my mind for twenty-four; But that is neither here nor there, — the Iliad 'S my model now; if Virgil has no more Than twelve, that's Virgil's fault, not mine. And will I add Still more hereafter? That I should deplore, When books are Caponsacchi'd and Pompilia'd Out of all compass. Still there is no bar at a Length like Ramayana or Mahabharata.

I promised, too, an episode in Hades, Without which no true Epic is complete. A journey through the Valley of the Shade is Undoubtedly the proper Epic feat, — That hard, enamelled country where no blade is Nor any footprint of returning feet! You know Æneas said it, and Ulysses, In just such epic poetry as this is.

But when I planned to write of those obscurities Where Dante says the temperature's at zero (On this point there's some conflict in authorities) I did not think myself to be the hero Of that part of my poem, nor confer at ease With such as Nimrod there, or Nap, or Nero (Not such as Homer, Virgil, Dante show them, — But still it gets the next world in my poem).

But here I am, and here I'm like to stay, And I can save Don Juan this excursion By giving you a rough sketch by the way Of my own knowledge and not mere assertion. Hell is not what it was in Homer's day, And if my pictures prove a novel version Of that dread place too much ignored of late, Remember, that Hell, too, is up-to-date.

I died, you know, for Greece, — at Missolonghi. Much good it ever did the Greeks or me! It let me into ghostland by the wrong key, And, for the Greeks, no doubt they think they're free, Like every other independent donkey Who grips the name and lets the substance be, Thinking his country is more free the smaller 'tis, And that the franchise really brings equalities.

That land is free where the inhabitants Are free; the rest is merely oratory. The trouble is that human history grants No glimpse of such a land in all its story. One slavery dies but by another's lance; And in the process many men get glory, But the vast millions only fresh disasters — Monarchs or mobs — it is but a change of masters.

Muscle was King once; now the King is money. The form of government — the world's partition —These things are but the wax and not the honey; "The means whereby I live" is the condition Of Freedom as of life. It is not funny To eat but by the other man's permission; And it makes little difference to the stoker If Thomas Platt be Lord or Richard Croker.

But I, at least, was true to Freedom's cause Even to the death (let Southy say as much!) And, whether wise or foolish, let's not pause To wonder now; it had the lyric touch. And I'd not have it other than it was. But the next moment I was in the clutch Of Something, of two Somethings, pulling, hauling me, Until I thought 'twas Scotch reviewers mauling me.

When I became a little more aware And they became a little out of breath, I saw the Things that grappled with me were Too beautiful to be in thrall to Death, So that I trembled, seeing them so fair, And like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth The terror of their immateriality Shuddered my soul, still wonted to mortality.

Till I remembered I was immaterial As well as they, and then I grew more bold And looked more closely at their forms ethereal. One was a Shape of Light, superb and cold, And one of Darkness, passionate and imperial, And both of Beauty. But … was I not told — ? … Sure, not my good and evil angels these? … Why, I … I thought the angels were all he's!

"Men have called women angels for so long 'Tis natural they should call angels women," I said; "but scholars know that that's all wrong. There may be she-gods in the faith of Rimmon, But not the Michaels of Hebraic song. As well imagine it was a persimmon Eve plucked in Eden, when it was an apple, As everybody knows who's been to Chapel.

"Pray tell me, ladies, why you give the lie To all the grave Rabbinical traditions With such unblushing muliebriety?" Thereat they blushed, confirming my suspicions. "George," said the Shape of Light, "pray tell me why We should not here, as on the earth, have missions? In the old days, of course, we had no chance to; But you must know we spirits are 'advanced' too."

"Men," said the darker beauty, "can no longer Retain their old monopoly of the offices. The cause of feminism grows daily stronger. And though as guardian angels we're but novices, I hope you'll find us subtler, sweeter, younger, Than any cloistered frump that lived in Clovis's Or Pepin's day, and knew no ways to please men Better than Biddy has for her policemen."

"Madame," I said, "almost thou dost persuade me To be a feminist. And, ladies both, Since I have seen you, by the God that made me —" (My Good Angel looked startled at the oath.) "Since with your beauty you have both waylaid me, —" (My fingers met the Dark One's, nothing loth.) "Alike to heaven and hell more reconciled — I trod here on the other's boot, and smiled.

That finished me. My Good Angel was a prude, And off she flew to Heaven in such a huff I thought her manner positively rude. Whereat my Evil Angel plucked my cuff And — well — what other course could be pursued? I had but her — and wasn't she enough? — I don't complain — there was some compensation — And that is how they settled my damnation.

Hell (but it took some time to get to Hell, We had so much to say along the road) Rose at the last before us, dark and fell. Far off it lay — or squatted, like a toad — On the horizon. Like a sudden knell It tolled across the waters wherethrough we strode. Low, sinister and sinuous it crouched, As if it menaced more than it avouched.

But that was the outside; the old walls stood Much as they looked when first they were created; Æons on æons have their towers withstood And only grown more sullen as they waited; But they that dwell therein have changed their mood; The inside is completely renovated; They speak of the old ways with an apology And are quite up in modern criminology.

'Twas more poetical in times more pristine Before Lombroso led them in new paths; It's cleaner now, and also more Philistine, The grim stones hid with plastered over laths And hung with prints of Guidos and the Sistine, While Phlegethon is used for Turkish baths, Dis piped and drained and turned into a dormitory And all Hell has become one vast Reformatory.

Tartarus is a laboratory now, Gymnastics flourish in the meadows Stygian, The devils are all doctors studying how To bring their prisoners to true religion, And Lucifer, with spectacles on brow, Turned Dry-as-dust, and the whole whitewashed region A dull régime to make poor duffers holy— I prefer Italy and la Guiccioli.

Still it is interesting here because There are such interesting people — lots! Cæsar, Petronius, Attila, Morgause, Nell Gwynne, Aspasia, Mary Queen of Scots, And more good company than I can pause To mention, have their numbers, and their cots. And Heaven is much more boresome, so they say,— A sort of middle-class Y. M. C. A.

Besides, this criminology's a fad; Nordau has killed it. Even now a faction O' the younger twentieth-century devils, glad Of any change, is threatening reaction. And after the carbolic we have had, Even brimstone would be welcome for olfaction. I even note some restlessness in Lucifer — He feels he's not the part — as well play crucifer!

But here we are — and here I am (at present) Number nine thousand million and nineteen, My photograph's been taken, looking pleasant; And filed with notes describing dress and mien, What moles I have and where, and what malfeasant Mattoidal marks are on my person seen, Full measurements by the Bertillon system, And many other matters to assist 'em.

The only punishments that still remain Are those that fit the crime, Mikado-fashion;

Each still pursues his vision, and in vain, (Even after death persists the ruling passion); Midas must still heap useless gain on gain, And hapless love make Romeo's cheek grow ashen; Napoleon still leads armies — to his ruin, And I continue still to write Don Juan.

Now if you ask me why I don't go on Where I left off, and finish up the story Of how the Duchess played the ghost for fun And whether friendship grew more amatory In Lady Adeline and that other one — Who was so innocent and pinafore-y — What was her name? — well, anyhow, you see, I forget what that story was to be.

Dying has put it all out of my head, — You see, it's quite an incident to die, And the excitement of it broke the thread Of what I had in mind to write. So I Must let dead cantos bury their own dead And write of what the public wants to buy. Southy's forgotten; so is Castlereagh; But there are fools and scoundrels still to-day.

I'm just as well informed as a New Yorker Of Wall Street, Waldorf, Tammany, what not; We've a brand-new kinetoscope — a corker — It's just as good as being on the spot —

A ticker gives the latest price of pork or Of Atchinson — or any other lot — And when we're bored with happenings infernal We read the extras ofThe New York Journal.

So I commence anew my song extemporary, And if you think it strange that I who diedIn '24, so soon become contemporaryWith you of '99, that's quite beside The question. Here we know not of things temporary; Past, future, present, all with us abide; In Hell a thousand years are as a day (It's also true if turned the other way.)

We, being out of time, — but then you wouldn't Be able to understand me if I told you — I couldn't when on earth (but I'm no student And never was) … You see, Time doesn't enfold you; You enfold Time. But, really, it's imprudent To talk of metaphysics. Why, a cold dew Starts on my brow when I see Kant draw nearer … Just ask Tom Davidson to make this clearer.

* * * * * * * *

1899