Personal Choice Volume 2 No.6

from Don Juan by Lord Byron

When Juan woke he found some good things ready,

A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes

That ever made a youthful heart less steady,

Besides her maid’s as pretty for their size;

But I have spoken of all this already—

And repetition’s tiresome and unwise, —

Well—Juan, after bathing in the sea,

Came always back to coffee and Haidee.

Haidée is an ardent, beautiful and sensuous young woman in search of perfect love. She is all heart, and her mind has received little, if any, formal training. She has had religious instruction, however; Byron tells us that she is pious and has been taught the tenets of the Greek Orthodox Church. She is also not without experience in courtship. By the time she is seventeen, she has had a number of marriage offers.

George Gordon Byron (1788 - 1824) was an English poet and peer. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement and is regarded as being among the greatest of English poets. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; much of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.