She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o'crshading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail,
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all;-her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.
The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room,
And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom
Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
Knowing they must be settled by the laws.
With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,
.Following Antonia's motions here and there,
With much suspicion in his attitude:
For reputations he had little care;
So that a suit or action were made good,
Small pity had he for the young and fair,
And ne'er believed in negatives, till these w
Were proved by competent false witnesses..
But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,
And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;
When, after searching in five hundred nooks,
And treating a young wife with so much rigour,
He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes, {{
Added to those his lady with such vigour
Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,
Quick, thick, and heavy as a thunder shower.
At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
To which the sole reply were tears, and sobs, And indications of hysterics, whose
Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs, Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:— : Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's, He saw too, in perspective, her relations; And then he tried to muster all his patience.››
He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,
But sage Antonia cut him short before
The anvil of his speech received the hammer, '
With,,Pray sir, leave the room, and say no more,
,,Or madam dies."Alfonso mutter'd,,D-n her,"
But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid. ›
With him retired his,,posse comitatus,"
The attorney last, who linger'd near the door, Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
Antonia let him not a little sore
At this most strange and unexplain'd,,hiatus" In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore An awkward look; as he revolved the case, The door was fasten'd in his legal face.
No sooner was it bolted, than · Oh shame!
Oh sin! Oh. sorrow! and Oh womankind!
How can you do such things and keep your fame
Unless this world, and t'other too, be blind?
Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!
But to proceed for there is more behind:
With much heart-felt reluctance be it said,
Young Juan slipp'd, half-smother'd, from the bed.
He had been hid- I don't pretend to say
How, nor can I indeed describe the where
Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,
No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
But pity him I neither must nor may
His suffocation by that pretty pair;
"Twere better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.
And, secondly, I pity not, because
He had no business to commit a sin,
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws,
At least 'twas rather early to begin;
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much as when we call our old debts in At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil, And find a deuced balance with the devil.
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