o one to oblige her
With such a chart as may be safely stuck to--
For Europe ploughs in Afric like 'bos piger:'
But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there
No doubt I should be told that black is fair.

It is. I will not swear that black is white;
But I suspect in fact that white is black,
And the whole matter rests upon eyesight.
Ask a blind man, the best judge. You 'll attack
Perhaps this new position--but I 'm right;
Or if I 'm wrong, I 'll not be ta'en aback:--
He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark
Within; and what seest thou? A dubious spark.

But I 'm relapsing into metaphysics,
That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same
Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics,
Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame;
And this reflection brings me to plain physics,
And to the beauties of a foreign dame,
Compared with those of our pure pearls of price,
Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose
Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes;--
Not that there 's not a quantity of those
Who have a due respect for their own wishes.
Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows
Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious:
They warm into a scrape, but keep of course,
As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

But this has nought to do with their outsides.
I said that Juan did not think them pretty
At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides
Half her attractions--probably from pity--
And rather calmly into the heart glides,
Than storms it as a foe would take a city;
But once there (if you doubt this, prithee try)
She keeps it for you like a true ally.

She cannot step as does an Arab barb,
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning,
Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,
Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning;
Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb--
le those bravuras (which I still am learning
To like, though I have been seven years in Italy,
And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily);--

She cannot do these things, nor one or two
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style
Which takes so much--to give the devil his due;
Nor is she quite so ready with her smile,
Nor se