Advancing to the nearest dinner tray, Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest, With a peculiar smile, which, by the way, Boded no good, whatever it express’d, He ask’d the meaning of this holiday; The vinous Greek to whom he had address’d His question, much too merry to divine The questioner, fill’d up a glass of wine,
And without turning his facetious head, Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air, Presented the o’erflowing cup, and said, ‘Talking ’s dry work, I have no time to spare.’ A second hiccup’d, ‘Our old master ’s dead, You’d better ask our mistress who ’s his heir.’ ‘Our mistress!’ quoth a third: ‘Our mistress!—pooh!- You mean our master—not the old, but new.’
These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom They thus address’d—and Lambro’s visage fell— And o’er his eye a momentary gloom Pass’d, but he strove quite courteously to quell The expression, and endeavouring to resume His smile, requested one of them to tell The name and quality of his new patron, Who seem’d to have turn’d Haidee into a matron.
‘I know not,’ quoth the fellow, ‘who or what He is, nor whence he came—and little care; But this I know, that this roast capon ’s fat, And that good wine ne’er wash’d down better fare; And if you are not satisfied with that, Direct your questions to my neighbour there; He’ll answer all for better or for worse, For none likes more to hear himself converse.’
I said that Lambro was a man of patience, And certainly he show’d the best of breeding, Which scarce even France, the paragon of nations, E’er saw her most polite of sons exceeding; He bore these sneers against his near relations, His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding, The insults, too, of every servile glutton, Who all the time was eating up his mutton.
Now in a person used to much command— To bid men come, and go, and come again— To see his orders done, too, out of hand— Whether the word was death, or but the chain— It may seem strange to find his manners bland; Yet such things are, which I can not explain, Though doubtless he who can command himself Is good to govern—almost as a Guelf.
Not that he was not sometimes rash or so, But never in his real and serious mood; Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow, He lay coil’d like the boa in the wood; With him it never was a word and blow, His angry word once o’er, he shed no blood, But in his silence there was much to rue, And his one blow left little work for two.