George Gordon, Lord Byron

“ Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,
Not very dashing, but extremely winning,
With the most regulated charms of feature,
Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning
Against proportion -- the wild strokes of nature
Which they hit off at once in the beginning,
Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,
And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. ”

“ And so good night to them, -- or, if you will,
Good morrow -- for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,
And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.
LXXXVII
With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale
As passion rises, with its bosom worn,
Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil. ”

“ Save that of dreaming once "mal-à-propos."
LXXXV
As thus Juanna spoke, Dudù turn'd round
And hid her face within Juanna's breast:
Her neck alone was seen, but that was found
The colour of a budding rose's crest.
I can't tell why she blush'd, nor can expound
The mystery of this rupture of their rest;
All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late. ”

“ Dudù was fond of kissing -- which I'm sure
That nobody can ever take amiss,
Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure,
And between females means no more than this --
That they have nothing better near, or newer. ”

“ Not only as a sin, but as a bore:
Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed,
Will scarcely find philosophy for more;
And all (except Mahometans) forbear
To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."
XIII
His Highness, the sublimest of mankind, --
So styled according to the usual forms
Of every monarch, till they are consign'd
To those sad hungry jacobins the worms,
Who on the very loftiest kings have dined, --
His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,
Expecting all the welcome of a lover
(A "Highland welcome" all the wide world over) . ”

“ And I love wisdom more than she loves me;
My tendency is to philosophise
On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;
But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies.
What are we? and whence came we? what shall be
Our ultimate existence? what's our present? ”

“ Dudù had never pass'd for wanting sense,
But, being "no orator as Brutus is,"
Could not at first expound what was amiss.
LXXV
At length she said, that in a slumber sound
She dream'd a dream, of walking in a wood --
A "wood obscure," like that where Dante found
Himself in at the age when all grow good;
Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crown'd
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude ”

“ At least we think so, though but few have guess'd
The moment, till too late to come again.
But no doubt every thing is for the best --
Of which the surest sign is in the end:
When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. ”

“ They should have walk'd there in their sprightliest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.
LXV
Many and beautiful lay those around,
Like flowers of different hue, and clime, and root,
In some exotic garden sometimes found,
With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot. ”

“ To take us from our natural rest, and pull
The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,
Would make us think the moon is at its full.
You surely are unwell, child! we must see,
To-morrow, what his Highness's physician
Will say to this hysteric of a vision.
LXXXI
"And poor Juanna, too -- the child's first night
Within these walls to be broke in upon
With such a clamour! I had thought it right
That the young stranger should not lie alone,
And, as the quietest of all, she might
With you, Dudù, a good night's rest have known ”

“ Or rather lake, for rills do not run slowly, --
Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.
XXXIV
But when they reach'd their own apartments, there,
Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,
Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere
When freed from bonds (which are of no great use
After all) , or like Irish at a fair,
Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce
Establish'd between them and bondage, they
Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play. ”

“ A thing of much less import in that clime --
At least to those of incomes which afford
The filling up their whole connubial cargo --
Than where two wives are under an embargo.
XCI
He did not think much on the matter, nor
Indeed on any other: as a man
He liked to have a handsome paramour
At hand, as one may like to have a fan,
And therefore of Circassians had good store,
As an amusement after the Divan;
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,
Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty. ”

“ Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,
They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha.
XL
Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka, and Dudù; in short
(To save description) , fair as fair can be
Were they, according to the best report,
Though differing in stature and degree,
And clime and time, and country and complexion;
They all alike admired their new connection. ”

“ Yet he could not at times keep, by the way
(Although the consequences of such frisks
Are worse than the worst damages men pay
In moral England, where the thing's a tax) ,
From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.
XXX
Still he forgot not his disguise: -- along
The galleries from room to room they walk'd,
A virgin-like and edifying throng,
By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd
A dame who kept up discipline among
The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd
Without her sanction on their she-parades:
Her title was "the Mother of the Maids." ”