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 (1): try it, sir, before
You sneer, and I assure you this is true,
For I have found it answer-so may you.

(1) [My friend, Dr. Granville, in his Travels to St. Petersburgh, 1829, says that "sea-sickness consists of vomiting-or something like it," and that the true way to escape the malady, is to take 45 drops of laudanum at starting, and as often afterwards as uneasiness recurs. Dr. Kitchener observes, that the beef-steak, recommended by Lord Byron, can suit only a very young and vigorous stomach on such occasions, and advises his pupil to adhere to salted fish and devils, with quant. suff: of hock or brandy in soda water. - HILL]

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.

XVI.'

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, my canto.

Perhaps it may be lined with this

XVII.

And Juan wept, and much he sigh'd and thought,
While his salt tears dropp'd into the salt sea,
"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.

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 any thing 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 vessel pitches so)— Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!" (Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)

XXI.

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.

XXII.

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.

XXIII.

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,
Sea-sickness death: his love was perfect, how else
Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar,
Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before?

XXIV.

The ship, call'd the most holy" Trinidada," (1)
Was steering duly for the port Leghorn;
For there the Spanish family Moncada

Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born:

(1) [In the year 1799, while Lord Byron was the pupil of Dr. Glennie, at Dulwich, among the books that lay accessible to the boys was a pamphlet, entitled "Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno on the Coast of Arracan, in the Year 1795." The pamphlet attracted but little public attention; but, among the young students of Dulwich Grove it was a favourite study; and the impression which it left on the retentive mind of Byron may have had some share, perhaps, in suggesting that curious research through all the various accounts of Shipwrecks upon record, by which he prepared himself to depict, with such power, a scene of the same description in Don Juan..... As to the charge of plagiarism brought against him by some scribblers of the day, for so doing, with as much justice might the Italian author, who wrote a Discourse on the Military Science displayed by Tasso in his battles, have reproached that poet with the sources from which he drew his knowledge; - with as much justice might Puysegur and Segrais, who have pointed out the same merit in Homer and Virgil, have withheld their praise, because the science on which this merit was founded, must have been derived by the skill and industry of these poets from others. So little was Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out whatever coincidences of this kind occur in his own verses.- MOORE

"With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck, I think that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was not a single circumstance of it not taken from fact; not, indeed, from any single shipwreck, but all from actual facts of different wrecks."-Lord B._to_Mr. Murray.