The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

Thank heaven I've got no metaphor quite ready, (And so, my sober Muse—come, let's be steady.)

He also exploited to the full the structural advantages of the stanza. As a unit, eight lines give space enough to describe a single event or elaborate on a single idea without having to run on to the next stanza. If, on the other hand, what the poet has to say requires several short sentences, the arrangement of the rhymes allows him to pause at any point he likes without the stanza breaking up into fragments, for his separate statements will always be linked by a rhyme. The stanza divides by rhyme into a group of six lines followed by a coda of two; the poet can either observe this division and use the couplet as an epigrammatic comment on the first part, or he can take seven lines for his theme and use the final one as a punch line. Gulbeyaz, for the first time in her days,

Was much embarrassed, never having met In all her life with aught save prayers and praise;

And as she also risked her life to get Him whom she meant to tutor in love's ways

Into a comfortable tete-a-tete, To lose the hour would make her quite a martyr. And they had wasted now about a quarter.

Her form had all the softness of her sex,

Her features all the sweetness of the devil, When he put on the cherub to perplex

Eve, and paved (God knows what) the road to evil; The sun himself was scarce more free from specks

Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting, As if she rather ordered than was granting.

What had been Byron's defect as a serious poet, his lack of reverence for words, was a virtue for the comic poet. Serious poetry requires that the poet treat words as if they were per­sons, but comic poetry demands that he treat them as things and few, if any, English poets have rivaled Byron's ability to put words through the hoops.

Needless to say, the skill of the comic poet, like that of the lion tamer or the clown, takes hard work to perfect. Byron chose to give others the impression that he dashed off his poetry, like a gentleman, without effort, but the publication of the Variorum edition of Don Juan demonstrates that, al­though he wrote with facility, he took a great deal more pains than he pretended. The editors, with an industrious devotion which is as admirable as it is, to me, incredible, have provided statistical tables. Thus, 87 out of the 172, stanzas in Canto I show revisions in four or more lines, and 123 revisions in the concluding couplet. A few examples will suffice.

Canto I, st. 103. First draft:

They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates Change horses every hour from night till noon; Then spur away with empires and oe'r states, Leaving no vestige but a bare chronology, Except the hopes derived from true theology.

First Revision:

Except the promises derived from true theology. Final version:

They are a sort of post-house where the Fates Change horses, making history change its tune; Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states, Leaving at last not much besides chronology Excepting the post-obits of theology.

Canto IX, st. 33. First draft:

O ye who build up statues all defiled

With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive Sophy,

Who after leaving Hindostan a wild,

And leaving Asia scarce a cup of coffee,

To soothe his woes withal, went mad and was

Killed because what he swallowed would not pass.

Final version:

O! ye who build up monuments defiled With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive Sophy Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild, And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee, To soothe his woes withal, was slain—the sinner! Because he could no more digest his dinner.

Canto XI, st. 60.

First version:

'Tis strange the mind should let such phrases quell its Chief impulse with a few frail paper pellets.

Second Version:

'Tis strange the mind, that all celestial Particle, Should let itself be put out by an Article. Final Version:

'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery Particle, Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article.

One should be wary, when comparing an author's various productions, of saying: this piece is an expression of the real man and that piece is not—for nobody, not even the subject himself, can be certain who he is. All we can say is that this piece is the expression of a person who might possibly exist but nobody could possibly exist of whom that piece would be the expression.