What Great Men Have Said About Women | Page 4

beholders in a tender taking.
Don Juan, Canto 6.
The very first?Of human life must spring from woman's breast,?Your first small words are taught you from her lips,?Your first tears quench'd by her, and your last sighs?Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,?When men have shrunk from the ignoble care?Of watching the last hour of him who led them.
Sardanapalus, A. 1.
Soft, as the memory of buried love;?Pure, as the prayer which childhood wafts above?Was she.
Bride of Abydos; Canto 1.
She was a soft landscape of mild earth,?Where all was harmony, and calm and quiet,?Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,?Which, if not happiness, is more nigh it?Than are your mighty passions and so forth,?Which some call "the sublime": I wish they'd try it;?I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,?And pity lovers rather more than seamen.
Don Juan, Canto 6.
The tender blue of that large loving eye.
The Corsair, Canto 1.
Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,?Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips;?To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;?To some she curtsies, and to some she dips;?Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow'd,?Her lover brings the lemonade,--she sips:?She then surveys, condemns, but pities still?Her dearest friends for being drest so ill.?One had false curls, another too much paint,?A third--where did she buy that frightful turban??A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint,?A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban,?A sixth's white silk has got a yellow tint,?A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her bane,?And lo! an eighth appears,--I'll see no more!?For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score.
Beppo.
She was blooming still, had made the best?Of time, and time return'd the compliment,?And treated her genteely, so that, drest,?She look'd extremely well where'er she went;?A pretty woman is a welcome guest,?And her brow a frown had rarely bent;?Indeed she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter?Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her.
Beppo.
I think, with all due deference?To the fair single part of the creation,?That married ladies should preserve the preference?In t��te-��-t��te or general conversation--?Because they know the world, and are at ease,?And being natural, naturally please.
Beppo.
She walks in beauty, like the night?Of cloudless climes and starry skies;?And all that's best of dark and bright?Meet in her aspect and her eyes;?Thus mellow'd to that tender light?Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,?Had half impair'd the nameless grace?Which waves in every raven tress,?Or softly lightens o'er her face;?Where thoughts serenely sweet express?How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,?So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,?The smiles that win, the tints that glow,?But tell of days in goodness spent,?A mind at peace with all below,?A heart whose love is innocent!
Hebrew Melodies.
I saw thee weep--the big bright tear?Came o'er that eye of blue:?And then methought it did appear?A violet dropping dew;?I saw thee smile--the sapphire's blaze?Beside thee ceased to shine,?It could not match the living rays?That fill'd that glance of thine.
As clouds from yonder sun receive?A deep and mellow die,?Which scarce the shade of coming eve?Can banish from the sky,?Those smiles unto the moodiest mind?Their own pure joy impart;?Their sunshine leaves a glow behind?That lightens o'er the heart.
Hebrew Melodies.
I have observed your sex, once roused to wrath,?Are timidly vindictive to a pitch?Of perseverance, which I would not copy.
Sardanapalus, A. 2.
She was pensive more than melancholy,?And serious more than pensive, and serene,?It may be, more than either ...?The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly?Unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen,?That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;?She never thought about herself at all.
_Don Juan, Canto 6.?_
A learned lady, famed?For every branch of every science known--?In every Christian language ever named,?With virtues equall'd by her wit alone.?She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,?And even the good with inward envy groan,?Finding themselves so very much exceeded?In their own way by all the things that she did.
Don Juan, Canto 1.
'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed?With persons of no sort of education,?Or gentlemen who, though well-born and bred,?Grow tired of scientific conversation:

Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
Don Juan, Canto 1.
What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger?Is woman? what a whirlwind is her head,?And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger?Is all the rest about her! whether wed,?Or widow, maid, or mother, she can change her?Mind like the wind; whatever she has said?Or done, is light to what she'll say or do;--?The oldest thing on record, and yet new!
Don Juan, Canto 9.
Round her she made an atmosphere of life,?The very air seem'd lighter from her eyes,?They were so soft and beautiful, and rife?With all we can imagine of the skies;--

Her overpowering presence made you feel,
It would not be idolatry to kneel.
Don Juan, Canto 3.
Through her eye the Immortal shone;

Her eyes' dark charm 'twere vain to tell,
But gaze