O DEVILS! if your damn'd condition
Contains, perchance, an opposition!
What are those imps, who sport the hue
Sacred to Whigs, and Wisdom-blue?
Oh say, what are those dismal prigs,
Are they young Benthamites, or-Whigs?
Ye devils blue! how oft, alas!
On me you vent your azure spite!
Just now I took a cheerful glass,
To" purge your colour from my sight!"
If from my cradle you've pursued me,
Dull'd, gloom'd, oppress'd-ye ne'er subdued me!
In vain betwixt me and the sky
Ye lower, I dare you, and defy!
I do not stoop to soothe, and flatter you;
Nor, like Tom Moore, with praise bespatter you! I do not call you the sublime
Feelings of gentlemen who rhyme.
I don't wrap angel wings about you,
Your ugly shapes with grace investing,
Swear Genius cannot do without you,
And that you're "deeply interesting!"
No-spite of critical severe raffs*
Blue devils make but sorry seraphs.
These devils in our Isle's immense city,
Finding no dwelling-place more pleasant,
Now, in their bluest blue intensity,
On Chang seem'd settled for the present!
Moodier and darker every hour,
His visage and his spirit seem;
* Mr. Moore, in his Life of Lord Byron, was pleased to talk very finely indeed about melancholy. Thinking his doctrine pernicious to the growth of common sense, I expressed that opinion in “ Paul Clifford ;" though, of course, with that deference that an ordinary man owes to a great one; whereon certain critics-friends possibly of Mr. Moore, were extremely wroth. I beg pardon of these gentlemen!--If melancholy be poetical, may they be poetical all the rest of their lives! God forbid that I should disturb their sombre satisfaction! They are right in defending their bad spirits their only claim to intellect is worth preserving!
And, wheresoe'er his steps are wending,
To earth you note his glances bending,
As if uncheck'd he would devour
Some nursed, but loathly dream.
And when with kindly voice and eye,
The secret of his altered mood,
The wistful brother tearful woo'd,
With few words, slow wrung nor willing
And an aspect stern and chilling,
He gave the vague reply.
All things,-pursuits, that pleased before,
Cheerlessly he sought no more.
Sometimes you his lips might see
Moving fast unconsciously;
But aloud no word was uttered,
It within was, charm-like, muttered,
Like some dark and guilty yearning,
From the very daylight turning.
Oft he, in his gloomy trance,
Darted round a jealous glance;
And if none appeared to mark,
With a gaze that from within
Stole the venom, fierce and dark,
On his brother's face it bent---
But it softened ere it went;
And his flesh and members quivered,
Like a man but just delivered
From a peril or a sin!
Strange and terrible, I ween,
Had the contrast of that look
(If thou hadst its meaning seen)
And their posture then have been!
For, whate'er their feelings took
Of change, the brothers ne'er forsook
The lovely custom which had grown
From their birth their own;
So--all the while you shunned to trace
The passions of the sterner face;
Still, with arm round either thrown
They sate in close embrace!
But oft, when Mary with her sweet
And her delicious beauty, stole
Athwart his presence-seemed to fleet
The demon from the Indian's soul!
With a fixed and charmed eye,
And a quick and startled sigh,
Would his panting heart pursue her!
As if--to use the fairy words---
That Passion tuned to Fancy's chords---
He yearned to meet her silvery feet,
His soul to pour unto her.*
*"And when I shall meet
Thy silvery feet,
My soul I'll pour unto thee."
Yet sometimes e'en her magic failed,
And a darker power prevailed,
And sometimes if, her voice addrest
His brother's ear-or, if her smile
Replied, tho' sadly, to the jest
With which the light Ching would beguile
The grief which even he perceived
Upon her brow--and seeing grieved ;—-
Then a cloud came o'er his air,
Or a swift and angry glare
In his gloomy eye-ball glittered;
And low words he gibbered, strung
In his unknown native tongue,
But which Ching would seem to hear
With a deprecating fear;
For, since Chang's had been imbittered, (Wherefore he but dimly guest)
Ching's warm nature had been spelled ;
From its choler bowed, and quelled
By the passions of a breast
Roused--a tempest from its rest!
All that seemed to soothe or please,
Were the lofty colloquies,
That from time to time, we told,
How with Julian he would hold;
Yet from these returned, his mood,
Less stern, was oft more sadly-hued,
As if the more his knowledge learned
Of man's true ends, and Nature's laws,
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