O Plato! Plato! you have paved the way, With your confounded fantasies, to more Immoral conduct by the fancied sway Your system feigns o’er the controulless core Of human hearts, than all the long array Of poets and romancers:—You’re a bore, A charlatan, a coxcomb—and have been, At best, no better than a go-between.
And Julia’s voice was lost, except in sighs, Until too late for useful conversation; The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes, I wish indeed they had not had occasion, But who, alas! can love, and then be wise? Not that remorse did not oppose temptation; A little still she strove, and much repented And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’—consented.
’Tis said that Xerxes offer’d a reward To those who could invent him a new pleasure: Methinks the requisition ’s rather hard, And must have cost his majesty a treasure: For my part, I’m a moderate-minded bard, Fond of a little love (which I call leisure); I care not for new pleasures, as the old Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.
O Pleasure! you are indeed a pleasant thing, Although one must be damn’d for you, no doubt: I make a resolution every spring Of reformation, ere the year run out, But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing, Yet still, I trust it may be kept throughout: I’m very sorry, very much ashamed, And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim’d.
Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take— Start not! still chaster reader—she’ll be nice hence— Forward, and there is no great cause to quake; This liberty is a poetic licence, Which some irregularity may make In the design, and as I have a high sense Of Aristotle and the Rules, ’tis fit To beg his pardon when I err a bit.
This licence is to hope the reader will Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day, Without whose epoch my poetic skill For want of facts would all be thrown away), But keeping Julia and Don Juan still In sight, that several months have pass’d; we’ll say ’Twas in November, but I’m not so sure About the day—the era ’s more obscure.
We’ll talk of that anon.—’Tis sweet to hear At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier, By distance mellow’d, o’er the waters sweep; ’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear; ’Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; ’tis sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.