ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

When, gazing on them, mystified by distance, We enter on our nautical existence.

XIII.

{swore, So Juan stood, bewilder'd, on the deck: The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck, From which away so fair and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beefsteak

Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I have found it answer-so may you.

XIV.

Don Juan stood, and gazing from the stern,
Beheld his native Spain receding far;
First partings form a lesson hard to learn,
Even nations feel this when they go to war;
There is a sort of unexprest concern,

A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar: At leaving even the most unpleasant people And places, one keeps looking at the steeple.

XV.

But Juan had got many things to leave,

His mother, and a mistress, and no wife, So that he had much better cause to grieve Than many persons more advanced in life; And if we now and then a sigh must heave

At quitting even those we quit in strife, No doubt we weep for those the heart endearsThat is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.

XVI.

So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews

By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion: I'd weep, but mine is not a weeping Muse,

And such light griefs are not a thing to die on : Young men should travel, if but to amuse

Themselves; and the next time their servants tie on

Behind their carriages their new portmanteau,
Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto.

XVII.

And Juan wept, and much he sigh'd, and thought, While his salt tears dropp'd into the salt sea, 'Sweets to the sweet ;' (I like so much to quote;

You must excuse this extract-'tis where she, The queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought . Flowers to the grave); and, sobbing often, he Reflected on his present situation, And seriously resolved on reformation.

XVIII.

Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!' he cried;
Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,

But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore:
Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide!
Farewell, my mother! and since all is o'er,
Farewell, too, dearest Julia !' (here he drew
iler letter out again, and read it through.)

ΧΙΧ.

And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear-But that's impossible, and cannot be ; Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air, Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea,

Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!
Or think of anything excepting thee;
A mind diseased no remedy can physic
(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew seasick.)

XX.

'Sooner shall heaven kiss earth (here he fell sicker)--Oh, Julia! what is every other woe? (For God's sake, let me have a glass of liquor; Pedro, Battista, help me down below)--Julia, my love! (you rascal, Pedro, quicker)→ Oh, Julia this curst vessel pitches so)→ Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching! (Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)

XXI.

He felt that chilling heaviness of heart,
Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends,
Beyond the best apothecary's art,

The loss of love, the treachery of friends.
Or death of those we dote on, when a part

Of us dies with them, as each fond hope ends: No doubt he would have been much more pathetic, But the sea acted as a strong emetic.

XXII.

Love's a capricious power: I've known it hold
Out through a fever caused by its own heat,
But be much puzzled by a cough and cold,
And find a quinsy very hard to treat :
Against all noble maladies he's bold,

But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet,
Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh,
Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.
XXIII.

But worst of all is nausea, or a pain

About the lower regions of the bowels; Love, who heroically breathes a vein,

Shrinks from the application of hot towels,
And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,
Sea-sickness, death: his love was perfect, how
else

Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar,
Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before?

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
[psalms;
As rum and true religion: thus it was,
Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung
The high wind made the treble, and as bass
The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured
the qualms

Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws:
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion,
Clamour'd in chorus to the roaring ocean.
XXXV.

Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for
Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years,
Got to the spirit-room, and stood before

It with a pair of pistols; and their fears,
As if Death were more dreadful by his door

Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears, Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk, Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.

XXXVI.

'Give us more grog,' they cried, for it will be

All one an hour hence.' Juan answer'd, 'No!
'Tis true that death awaits both you and me,
But let us die like men, not sink below
Like brutes;'-and thus his dangerous post kept he,
And none liked to anticipate the blow;
And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor,
Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.
XXXVII.

The good old gentleman was quite aghast,
And made a loud and pious lamentation;
Repented all his sins, and made a last

Irrevocable vow of reformation:
Nothing should tempt him more (this peril past)
To quit his academic occupation,

In cloisters of the classic Salamanca,
To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho Panca.
XXXVIII.

But now there came a flash of hope once more;
Day broke, and the wind lull'd: the masts were

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

LXVI.

'Tis thus with people in an open boat,
They live upon the love of life, and bear
More than can be believed, or even thought,
And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear:
And hardship still has been the sailer's lot,
Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there;
She had a curious crew as well as cargo,
Like the first old Greek privateer, the Argo

LXVII.

But man is a carnivorous production,

And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey: Although his anatomical construction

Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
Your labouring people think, beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.
LXVIII.

And thus it was with this our hapless crew;
For on the third day there came on a calm,
And though at first their strength it might renew,
And, lying on their weariness like balm,
Lull'd them like turtles sleeping on the blue
Of ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm,
And fell all ravenously on their provision,
Instead of hoarding it with due precision.

LXIX.

The consequence was easily foreseen

They ate up all they had, and drank their wine, In spite of all remonstrances, and then

On what, in fact, next day were they to dine? They hoped the wind would rise, these foolish men! And carry them to shore; these hopes were fine, But as they had but one oar, and that brittle, It would have been more wise to save their victual. LXX.

The fourth day came, but not a breath of air,

And Ocean slumber'd like an unwean'd child; The fifth day, and their boat lay floating there, The sea and sky were blue, and clear, and mildWith their one oar (I wish they had had a pair) What could they do? and hunger's rage grew So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating, [wild: Was kill'd, and portion'd out for present eating.

LXXI..

On the sixth day they fed upon his hide,
And Juan, who had still refused, because

The creature was his father's dog that died,
Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws,
With some remorse received (though first denied),
As a great favour, one of the forepaws,
Which he divided with Pedrillo, who
Devour'd it, longing for the other too,

LXXII.

The seventh day, and no wind-the burning sun Blister'd and scorch'd, and, stagnant on the sea, They lay like carcases; and hope was none,

Save in the breeeze that came not: savagely They glared upon each other-all was done, Water, and wine, and food; and you might see The longings of the cannibal arise (Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes.

[ocr errors][merged small]

An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;
And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew,
'Twas but his own, suppress'd till now, he found:
And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood,
And who should die to be his fellows' food.
LXXIV.

But ere they came to this, they that day shared
Some leathern caps, and what remain'd of shoes;
And then they look'd around them, and despair'd,
And none to be the sacrifice would choose:
At length the lots were torn up, and prepared,
But of materials that must shock the Muse-
Having no paper, for the want of better,
They took by force from Juan, Julia's letter.

LXXV.

The lots mere made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and handed

In silent horror, and their distribution Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution; None in particular had sought or plann'd it,

'Twas nature gnaw'd them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuterAnd the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.

LXXVI.

He but requested to be bled to death:
The surgeon had his instruments, and bled
Pedrillo, and so gently ebb'd his breath,
You hardly could perceive when he was dead.
He died, as born, a Catholic in faith,

Like most, in the belief in which they're bred;
And first a little crucifix he kiss'd,
And then held out his jugular and wrist.

LXXVII.

The surgeon, as there was no other fee,
Had his first choice of morsels for his pains;
But being thirstiest at the moment he
Preferr'd a draught from the fast-flowing veins:
Part was divided, part thrown in the sea,

And such things as the entrails and the braius Regaled two sharks, who follow'd o'er the billowThe sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.

LXXVIII.

The sailors ate him, all save three or four, Who were not quite so fond of animal food; To these was added Juan, who, before

Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could Feel now his appetite increase much more; 'Twas not to be expected that he should, Even in extremity of their disaster, Dine with them on his pastor and his master.

LXXIX.

'Twas better that he did not; for in fact,

The consequence was awful in the extreme; For they who were most ravenous in the act,

Went raging mad-Lord! how they did blaspheme, And foam, and roll, with strange convulsions rack'd, Drinking salt-water, like a mountain-stream'

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »