FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65  
66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>   >|  
z 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--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 w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65  
66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

native

 

receding

 

gazing

 

nautical

 

mystified

 

assure

 
distance
 

Against

 

answer

 

sailors


sickness
 

bewilder

 

cordage

 

remedies

 

strain

 

existence

 

mistress

 

mother

 
things
 

steeple


grieve

 
quitting
 

persons

 

advanced

 

places

 
people
 

lesson

 
strife
 

nations

 

partings


Beheld

 

leaving

 

unpleasant

 

concern

 

unexprest

 

truant

 

rogues

 
Infants
 

children

 

Sunday


school
 
naughty
 

education

 
generation
 
success
 
taught
 

Dunces

 

improve

 

believed

 

letter