And send him like a dove of promise forth.
9
Don Juan bade his valet pack his things
According to direction, then received
A lecture and some money. For four springs
He was to travel, and though Inez grieved
(As every kind of parting has its stings),
She hoped he would improve, perhaps believed.
A letter too she gave (he never read it)
Of good advice – and two or three of credit.
10
In the meantime, to pass her hours away,
Brave Inez now set up a Sunday school
For naughty children, who would rather play
(Like truant rogues) the devil or the fool.
Infants of three years old were taught that day,
Dunces were whipt or set upon a stool.
The great success of Juan’s education
Spurred her to teach another generation.
11
Juan embarked, the ship got under way,
The wind was fair, the water passing rough.
A devil of a sea rolls in that bay,
As I, who’ve crossed it oft, know well enough.
And standing upon deck, the dashing spray
Flies in one’s face and makes it weather-tough.
And there he stood to take and take again
His first, perhaps his last, farewell of Spain.
12
I can’t but say it is an awkward sight
To see one’s native land receding through
The growing waters; it unmans one quite,
Especially when life is rather new.
I recollect Great Britain’s coast looks white,
But almost every other country’s blue,
When gazing on them, mystified by distance,
We enter on our nautical existence.
13
So Juan stood bewildered on the deck.
The wind sung, cordage strained, and sailors swore,
And the ship creaked, the town became a speck,
From which away so fair and fast they bore.
The best of remedies is a beefsteak
Against seasickness; try it, sir, before
You sneer, and I assure you this is true,
For I have found it answer – so may you.
14
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.
15
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 endears,
That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.
16
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.
17
And Juan wept and much he sighed and thought,
While his salt tears dropped 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.
18
‘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
Her letter out again and read it through.
19
‘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.)
20
‘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),
Belovéd Julia, hear me still beseeching!’
(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)
21
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.
22
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.
23
But worst of all is nausea or a pain
About the lower region of the bowels.
Love, who heroically breathes a vein,
Shrinks from the application of hot towels,
And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,
Seasickness death. His love was perfect; how else
Could Juan’s passion, while the billows roar,
Resist his stomach, ne’er at sea before?
24
The ship, called the most holy Trinidada,
Was steering duly for the port Leghorn,
For there the Spanish family Moncada
Were settled long ere Juan’s sire was born.
They were relations, and for them he had a
Letter of introduction, which the morn
Of his departure had been sent him by
His Spanish friends for those in Italy.
25
His suite consisted of three servants and
A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,
Who several languages did understand,
But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow,
And rocking in his hammock, longed for land,
His headache being increased by every billow.
And the waves oozing through the porthole made
His berth a little damp, and him afraid.
26
’Twas not without some reason, for the wind
Increased at night until it blew a gale
;
And though’twas not much to a naval mind,
Some landsmen would have looked a little pale,
For sailors are in fact a different kind.
At sunset they began to take in sail,
For the sky showed it would come on to blow
And carry away perhaps a mast or so.
27
At one o’clock the wind with sudden shift
Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea,
Which struck her aft and made an awkward rift,
Started the sternpost, also shattered the
Whole of her stern-frame, and ere she could lift
Herself from out her present jeopardy
The rudder tore away.’Twas time to sound
The pumps, and there were four feet water found.
28
One gang of people instantly was put
Upon the pumps and the remainder set
To get up part of the cargo and what not,
But they could not come at the leak as yet.
At last they did get at it really, but
Still their salvation was an even bet.
The water rushed through in a way quite puzzling,
While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslin
29
Into the opening, but all such ingredients
Would have been vain, and they must have gone down,
Despite of all their efforts and expedients,
But for the pumps. I’m glad to make them known
To all the brother tars who may have need hence,
For fifty tons of water were upthrown
By them per hour, and they had all been undone
But for the maker, Mr Mann, of London.
30
As day advanced the weather seemed to abate,
And then the leak they reckoned to reduce
And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet
Kept two hand and one chain pump still in use.
The wind blew fresh again; as it grew late
A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose,
A gust, which all descriptive power transcends,
Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.
31
There she lay, motionless, and seemed upset.
The water left the hold and washed the decks
And made a scene men do not soon forget,
For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks,
Or any other thing that brings regret
Or breaks their hopes or hearts or heads or necks.
Thus drownings are much talked of by the divers
And swimmers who may chance to be survivors.
32
Immediately the masts were cut away,
Both main and mizen. First the mizen went,
The mainmast followed, but the ship still lay
Like a mere log and baffled our intent.
Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they
Eased her at last (although we never meant
To part with all till every hope was blighted),
And then with violence the old ship righted.
33
It may be easily supposed, while this
Was going on, some people were unquiet,
That passengers would find it much amiss
To lose their lives as well as spoil their diet,
That even the able seaman, deeming his
Days nearly o’er, might be disposed to riot,
As upon such occasions tars will ask
For grog and sometimes drink rum from the cask.
34
There’s nought no doubt so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion; thus it was,
Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms.
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 seasick maws.
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion
Clamoured in chorus to the roaring ocean.
35
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.
36
‘Give us more grog,’ they cried, ‘for it will be
All one an hour hence.’ Juan answered, ‘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.
37
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.
38
But now there came a flash of hope once more;
Day broke, and the wind lulled. The masts were gone,
The leak increased, shoals round her, but no shore;
The vessel swam, yet still she held her own.
They tried the pumps again, and though before
Their desperate efforts seemed all useless grown,
A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale;
The stronger pumped, the weaker thrummed a sail.
39
Under the vessel’s keel the sail was past,
And for the moment it had some effect;
But with a leak and not a stick of mast
Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect?
But still’tis best to struggle to the last,
’Tis never too late to be wholly wrecked.
And though’tis true that man can only die once,
’Tis not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.
40
There winds and waves had hurled them, and from thence
Without their will they carried them away,
For they were forced with steering to dispense,
And never had as yet a quiet day
On which they might repose, or even commence
A jury mast or rudder, or could say
The ship would swim an hour, which by good luck
Still swam – though not exactly like a duck.
41
The wind in fact perhaps was rather less,
But the ship laboured so, they scarce could hope
To weather out much longer. The distress
Was also great with which they had to cope
For want of water, and their solid mess
Was scant enough. In vain the telescope
Was used; nor sail nor shore appeared in sight,
Nought but the heavy sea and coming night.
42
Again the weather threatened, again blew
A gale, and in the fore and after hold
Water appeared; yet though the people knew
All this, the most were patient, and some bold,
Until the chains and leathers were worn through
Of all our pumps. A wreck complete she rolled
At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are
Like human beings during civil war.
43
Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears
In his rough eyes and told the captain he
Coul
d do no more. He was a man in years
And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea,
And if he wept at length, they were not fears
That made his eyelids as a woman’s be,
But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children,
Two things for dying people quite bewildering.
44
The ship was evidently settling now
Fast by the head; and all distinction gone,
Some went to prayers again and made a vow
Of candles to their saints, but there were none
To pay them with; and some looked o’er the bow;
Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one
That begged Pedrillo for an absolution,
Who told him to be damned – in his confusion.
45
Some lashed them in their hammocks; some put on
Their best clothes, as if going to a fair;
Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun
And gnashed their teeth and howling tore their hair;
And others went on as they had begun,
Getting the boats out, being well aware
That a tight boat will live in a rough sea,
Unless with breakers close beneath her lee.
46
The worst of all was that in their condition,
Having been several days in great distress,
’Twas difficult to get out such provision
As now might render their long suffering less.
Men, even when dying, dislike inanition.
Their stock was damaged by the weather’s stress;
Two casks of biscuit and a keg of butter
Were all that could be thrown into the cutter.
47
But in the longboat they contrived to stow
Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet;
Water, a twenty gallon cask or so;
Six flasks of wine. And they contrived to get
A portion of their beef up from below,
And with a piece of pork moreover met,
But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon;
Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon.
48
The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had
Been stove in the beginning of the gale;
And the longboat’s condition was but bad,
As there were but two blankets for a sail
And one oar for a mast, which a young lad
Threw in by good luck over the ship’s rail.
And two boats could not hold, far less be stored,
To save one half the people then on board.
49
’Twas twilight and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters. Like a veil,
Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is masked but to assail,
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown
And grimly darkled o’er their faces pale
And the dim desolate deep. Twelve days had Fear
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