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 ancles 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

plann'd

A dress through which the eyes give such a volley, Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.

VIII:

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'Twas 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.

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.

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
Spurr'd her to teach another generation.

Juan embark'd

XI.

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.

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.

XIII.

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

Vol. IX.

so may you,

I

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 endears
That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.