And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
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.
V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz—
A pretty town, I recollect it well—
’Tis there the mart of the colonial trade is,
(Or was, before Peru learned to rebel),
And such sweet girls!157—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:158
VI
An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb
New broke, a camelopard, 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—
VII
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 planned
A dress through which the eyes give such a volley,
Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.159
VIII
But to our tale: the Donna Inez sent
Her son to Cadiz only to embark;
To stay there had not answered her intent,
But why?—we leave the reader in the dark—
’Twas for a voyage 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.
IX
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.
X
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 whipped, or set upon a stool:
The great success of Juan’s education
Spurred her to teach another generation.160
XI
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 on the 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.
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,161
But almost every other country’s blue,
When gazing on them, mystified by distance,
We enter on our nautical existence.
XIII
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 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.
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 unexpressed 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 endears—
That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.
XVI
So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews
By Babel’s waters, still remembering Zion:
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 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.
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
Her letter out again, and read it through.)
XIX
“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 sea-sick.)
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
