Analysis of Don Juan: Canto The Fourth
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man,- and, as we would hope,- perhaps the devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this- the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wish'd that others held the same opinion;
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow
Leaf,' and Imagination droops her pinion,
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'T is that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.
Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
And trace it in this poem every line:
I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
A novel word in my vocabulary.
To the kind reader of our sober clime
This way of writing will appear exotic;
Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,
Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic,
And revell'd in the fancies of the time,
True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings despotic:
But all these, save the last, being obsolete,
I chose a modern subject as more meet.
How I have treated it, I do not know;
Perhaps no better than they have treated me
Who have imputed such designs as show
Not what they saw, but what they wish'd to see:
But if it gives them pleasure, be it so;
This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free:
Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear,
And tells me to resume my story here.
Young Juan and his lady-love were left
To their own hearts' most sweet society;
Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft
With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he
Sigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft,
Though foe to love; and yet they could not be
Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring,
Before one charm or hope had taken wing.
Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their
Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail;
The blank grey was not made to blast their hair,
But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail
They were all summer: lightning might assail
And shiver them to ashes, but to trail
A long and snake-like life of dull decay
Was not for them- they had too little day.
They were alone once more; for them to be
Thus was another Eden; they were never
Weary, unless when separate: the tree
Cut from its forest root of years- the river
Damm'd from its fountain- the child from the knee
And breast maternal wean'd at once for ever,-
Would wither less than these two torn apart;
Alas! there is no instinct like the heart-
The heart- which may be broken: happy they!
Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold
The long year link'd with heavy day on day,
And all which must be borne, and never told;
While life's strange principle will often lie
Deepest in those who long the most to die.
'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore,
And many deaths do they escape by this:
The death of friends, and that which slays even more-
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,
Except mere breath; and since the silent shore
Awaits at last even those who longest miss
The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave
Which men weep over may be meant to save.
Haidee and Juan thought not of the dead-
The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them:
They found no fault with Time, save that he fled;
They saw not in themselves aught to condemn:
Each was the other's mirror, and but read
Joy sparkling in their
Scheme | ABABABCC DEDEDEFF GFGFGFHH AIAIAIJJ KLKLKLMM NONONOPP GMGMGMQQ RMRMRMAA STSTTTUU MVMVMVWW UXUXUXYY Z1 ZXZ1 2 2 3 N3 X3 S |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110010010 01010101 1101100110 0111010111 110011110110 10101011111 10111011111 11011011111 11111101110 0101001111 10111101010 110111011 111100101110 1111011111 110101001010 11010111010 1111101010 01110101010 11111111110 01010101010 11110101010 1000101010 00111101011 1111010101 0111110101 11111110111 11110101011 0111001111 1011001111 1111110111 1001010101 010101111 1101110101 0101010101 01101101001 110111101 11101111101 1011111101 01101101010 0101010100 10110110101 11110101010 11101011001 11110011010 010010101 11111101010 1111011010 1101001111 1111011111 01110111101 1101010111 1111111111 1111110111 11010010111 101011101 0111011101 110110101 1111110100 10101000101 111111011 11011111001 1111011111 1111110101 0111111101 1100111101 111111111 0111111111 1101111111 1011010101 0101110111 0101111101 1111111101 1001111111 11010101010 100111001 11110111010 1111001101 01010111110 1101111101 0111110101 0111110101 1100111101 0101001101 1101111101 0111110111 0111110101 1111001101 1001110111 1011111111 0101110111 01110111101 0111011111 0111010101 01111011101 01101010101 1111011111 100111101 01001011111 1111111111 1110011101 1101010011 11001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,322 |
Words | 834 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 102 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 264 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 4:15 min read
- 113 Views
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"Don Juan: Canto The Fourth" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15059/don-juan%3A-canto-the-fourth>.
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