Oн ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals: never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations,
In Juan's cause, were but employ'd in vain, Since in a way, that's rather of the oddest, he Became divested of his native modesty.
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth-
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much of course.
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was His lady mother, mathematical,
A, never mind; his tutor, an old ass; A pretty woman,-(that's quite natural, Or else the thing had hardly come to pass ;) A husband rather old, not much in unity With his young wife-a time, and opportunity.
Juan embark'd-the ship got under weigh,
The wind was fair, the water passing rough;
A devil of a sea rolls in that bay,
And, standing upon deck, the dashing spray
As I, who've cross'd it oft, know well enough:
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.
XII.
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.
So Juan stood bewilder'd on the deck:
The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors swore, And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck, From which away so far and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beef-steak
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.
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 rush'd through in a way quite puzzling, While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslin,
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.
Into the opening; but all such ingredients [down,"
Would have been vain, and they must have gone
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 been all undone
But for the maker Mr. Mann, of London.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.dk/books/content?id=kQ8PAAAAYAAJ&hl=da&output=html_text&pg=PA605&img=1&zoom=3&q=editions:ISBN0243400403&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U0Mpo4HKhkVdYv9GH4VW2IyAxrrgA&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=29,537,420,766)
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.
But now there came a flash of hope once more; Day broke, and the wind lull'd: the masts were
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 scem'd all useless grown,
A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale-
The stronger pump'd, the weaker thrumm'd a sail.
XXXIX.
Under the vessel's keel the sail was pass'd,
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 wreck'd: And though 'tis true that man can only die once, 'Tis not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.
There winds and waves had hurl'd them, and from
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
For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask. The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck.
There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion; thus it was, [psalms,
Some plunder'd, 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 seasick maws:
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion,
Clamor'd in chorus to the roaring ocean.
Still swam-though not exactly like a duck.
XLI.
The wind, in fact, perhaps was rather less,
But the ship labor'd 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 appear'd in sight, Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night.
Again the weather threaten'd-again blew
A gale, and in the fore and after hold
Water appear'd; 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 roll'd,
At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are
Like human beings during civil war.
Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears
In his rough eyes, and told the captain he
Could 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.
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 look'd o'er the bow, Some hoisted out the boats: and there was one That begg'd Pedrillo for absolution,
Who told him to be damn'd-in his confusion.
'Twas twilight, for 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
Been their familiar, and now Death was here.
L.
Some trial had been making at a raft,
With little hope in such a rolling sea,
A sort of thing at which one would have laugh,
If any laughter at such times could be,
Unless with people who too much have quaff'd,
And have a kind of wild and horrid glee
Half epileptical, and half hysterical:
Their preservation would have been a zele
At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hen-coops, spars,
And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose,
That still could keep afloat the struggling tars,
For yet they strove, although of no great use:
There was no light in heaven but a few stars;
The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews;
She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port,
And, going down head-foremost-sunk, in short.
Some lash'd them in their hammocks, some put on Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,
Their best clothes as if going to a fair;
Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun,
And gnash'd their teeth, and, howling, tore their
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.
Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave;
Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,
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.
But in the long-boat 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.
The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had
Been stove in the beginning of the gale;
And the long-boat'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,
Te save one half the people then on board.
And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.
And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek-the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
The boats, as stated, had got off before,
And in them crowded several of the crew; And yet their present hope was hardly more
Than what it had been, for so strong it blew,
There was slight chance of reaching any shore,
And then they were too many, though so ft-
Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat,
Were counted in them when they got afloat.
All the rest perish'd; near two hundred souls
Had left their bodies; and, what's worse, alas!
When over Catholies the ocean rolls,
They must wait several weeks, before a mass
Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,
Because, till people know what's come to pass,
They won't lay out their money on the dead-
It costs three francs for every mass that's said.
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