from Canto II

31

There she lay, motionless, and seem’d upset;
     The water left the hold, and wash’d the decks,
And made a scene men do not soon forget;
     For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks,
Or any other thing that brings regret,
     Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or necks:
Thus drownings are much talk’d of by the divers
And swimmers who may chance to be survivors.

32

Immediately the masts were cut away,
     Both main and mizen; first the mizen went,
The mainmast follow’d: but the ship still lay
     Like a mere log, and baffled our intent.
Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they
     Eased her at last (although we never meant
To part with all till every hope was blighted),
And then with violence the old ship righted.

33

It may be easily supposed, while this
    Was going on, some people were unquiet,
That passengers would find it much amiss
     To lose their lives as well as spoil their diet;
That even the able seaman, deeming his
     Days nearly o’er, might be disposed to riot,
As upon such occasions tars will ask
For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask.

34

There’s nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
     As rum and true religion; thus it was,
Some plunder’d, some drank spirits, some sung psalms,
     The high wind made the treble, and as bass
The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured the qualms
    Of all the luckless landsmen’s sea-sick maws:
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion,
Clamour’d in chorus to the roaring ocean.

35

Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for
     Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years,
Got to the spirit-room, and stood before
     It with a pair of pistols; and their fears,
As if Death were more dreadful by his door
     Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears,
Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk,
Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.

36

“Give us more grog,” they cried, “for it will be
     All one an hour hence.” Juan answer’d, “No!
‘Tis true that death awaits both you and me,
     But let us die like men, not sink below
Like brutes”:—and thus his dangerous post kept he,
     And none liked to anticipate the blow;
And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor,
Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.

37

The good old gentleman was quite aghast,
    And made a loud and pious lamentation;
Repented all his sins, and made a last
     Irrevocable vow of reformation;
Nothing should tempt him more (this peril past)
     To quit his academic occupation,
In cloisters of the classic Salamanca,
To follow Juan’s wake like Sancho Panca.

38

But now there came a flash of hope once more;
     Day broke, and the wind lull’d: the masts were gone,
The leak increased; shoals round her, but no shore,
     The vessel swam, yet still she held her own.
They tried the pumps again, and though before
     Their desperate efforts seem’d all useless grown,
A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale—
The stronger pump’d, the weaker thrumm’d a sail.

39

Under the vessel’s keel the sail was past,
     And for the moment it had some effect;
But with a leak, and not a stick of mast,
     Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect?
But still ‘tis best to struggle to the last,
     ‘Tis never too late to be wholly wreck’d:
And though ‘tis true that man can only die once,
‘Tis not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.

40

There winds and waves had hurl’d them and from thence,
     Without their will, they carried them away;
For they were forced with steering to dispense,
     And never had as yet a quiet day
On which they might repose, or even commence
    A jurymast or rudder, or could say
The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck,
Still swam—though not exactly like a duck.