📔 Don Juan

Nelson was once Britannia’s god of war, / And still should be so, but the tide is turn’d; / There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar, / ’Tis with our hero quietly inurn’d;

At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay, / Juan contrived to give an awkward blow, / And then his only garment quite gave way; / He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there, / I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.

But now at thirty years my hair is gray— / (I wonder what it will be like at forty? / I thought of a peruke the other day) […]

He left the room for his relinquished sword, / And Julia instant to the closet flew.

[T]ook his place with solemn / Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces / And levelled weapons still against the glacis.

In all these he was much and deeply read; / But not a page of any thing that's loose, / Or hints continuation of the species, / Was ever suffer'd, lest he should grow vicious.

They reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door / A tide of well-clad waiters, and around / The mob stood, and as usual several score / Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound / In decent London when the daylight's o'er; / Commodious but immoral, they are found / Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.

Ring for your valet—bid him quickly bring / Some hock and soda-water, then you'll know / […] For not the blest sherbet, sublimed with snow, / […] After long travel, ennui, love, or slaughter, / Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water.