Next they—he being naked, save a tatter’d Pair of scarce decent trowsers—went to work, And in the fire his recent rags they scatter’d, And dress’d him, for the present, like a Turk, Or Greek—that is, although it not much matter’d, Omitting turban, slippers, pistols, dirk,— They furnish’d him, entire, except some stitches, With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches.
And then fair Haidee tried her tongue at speaking, But not a word could Juan comprehend, Although he listen’d so that the young Greek in Her earnestness would ne’er have made an end; And, as he interrupted not, went eking Her speech out to her protege and friend, Till pausing at the last her breath to take, She saw he did not understand Romaic.
And then she had recourse to nods, and signs, And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye, And read (the only book she could) the lines Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy, The answer eloquent, where soul shines And darts in one quick glance a long reply; And thus in every look she saw exprest A world of words, and things at which she guess’d.
And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes, And words repeated after her, he took A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise, No doubt, less of her language than her look: As he who studies fervently the skies Turns oftener to the stars than to his book, Thus Juan learn’d his alpha beta better From Haidee’s glance than any graven letter.
’Tis pleasing to be school’d in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been; They smile so when one ’s right, and when one ’s wrong They smile still more, and then there intervene Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss;— I learn’d the little that I know by this:
That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek, Italian not at all, having no teachers; Much English I cannot pretend to speak, Learning that language chiefly from its preachers, Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week I study, also Blair, the highest reachers Of eloquence in piety and prose— I hate your poets, so read none of those.
As for the ladies, I have nought to say, A wanderer from the British world of fashion, Where I, like other ‘dogs, have had my day,’ Like other men, too, may have had my passion— But that, like other things, has pass’d away, And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on: Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me But dreams of what has been, no more to be.