And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us, The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, devotion, dust,--perhaps a name.
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz-- A pretty town, I recollect it well--
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls--I mean, such graceful ladies, Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike, Nor liken it--I never saw the like:
An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb
New broke, a cameleopard, a gazelle,
No--none of these will do;--and then their garb! Their veil and petticoat--Alas! to dwell
Upon such things would very near absorb
A canto--then their feet and ankles,--well, Thank Heaven I 've got no metaphor quite ready (And so, my sober Muse--come, let 's be steady--
Chaste Muse!--well, if you must, you must)--the veil
Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand, While the o'erpowering eye, that turns you pale, Flashes into the heart:--All sunny land
Of love! when I forget you, may I fail
To--say my prayers--but never was there plann'd A dress through which the eyes give such a volley, Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.
But to our tale: the Donna Inez sent
Her son to Cadiz only to embark;
To stay there had not answer'd her intent,
But why?--we leave the reader in the dark--
'T was for a voyage that the young man was meant, As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark,
To wean him from the wickedness of earth, And send him like a dove of promise forth.
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.
In the mean time, 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,
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Spurr'd her to teach another generation.
Juan embark'd--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 cross'd 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.
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 fair 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.
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.
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.
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.
And Juan wept, and much he sigh'd and thought, While his salt tears dropp'd into the salt sea,
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'Sweets to the sweet' (I like so much to quote; You must excuse this extract, 't is 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.
'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.)
'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 any thing excepting thee; A mind diseased no remedy can physic
(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick).
'Sooner shall heaven kiss earth (here he fell sicker), O, Julia! what is every other wo?
(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor; Pedro, Battista, help me down below.)
Julia,
