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Had sent them this for their deliverance.

       The land appear'd a high and rocky coast,

       And higher grew the mountains as they drew,

       Set by a current, toward it: they were lost

       In various conjectures, for none knew

       To what part of the earth they had been tost,

       So changeable had been the winds that blew;

       Some thought it was Mount AEtna, some the highlands,

       Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands.

       Meantime the current, with a rising gale,

       Still set them onwards to the welcome shore,

       Like Charon's bark of spectres, dull and pale:

       Their living freight was now reduced to four,

       And three dead, whom their strength could not avail

       To heave into the deep with those before,

       Though the two sharks still follow'd them, and dash'd

       The spray into their faces as they splash'd.

       Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done

       Their work on them by turns, and thinn'd them to

       Such things a mother had not known her son

       Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew;

       By night chill'd, by day scorch'd, thus one by one

       They perish'd, until wither'd to these few,

       But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter,

       In washing down Pedrillo with salt water.

       As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen

       Unequal in its aspect here and there,

       They felt the freshness of its growing green,

       That waved in forest-tops, and smooth'd the air,

       And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen

       From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare—

       Lovely seem'd any object that should sweep

       Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.

       The shore look'd wild, without a trace of man,

       And girt by formidable waves; but they

       Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran,

       Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay:

       A reef between them also now began

       To show its boiling surf and bounding spray,

       But finding no place for their landing better,

       They ran the boat for shore—and overset her.

       But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir,

       Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont;

       And having learnt to swim in that sweet river,

       Had often turn'd the art to some account:

       A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,

       He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont,

       As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided)

       Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did.

       So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark,

       He buoy'd his boyish limbs, and strove to ply

       With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark,

       The beach which lay before him, high and dry:

       The greatest danger here was from a shark,

       That carried off his neighbour by the thigh;

       As for the other two, they could not swim,

       So nobody arrived on shore but him.

       Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar,

       Which, providentially for him, was wash'd

       Just as his feeble arms could strike no more,

       And the hard wave o'erwhelm'd him as 't was dash'd

       Within his grasp; he clung to it, and sore

       The waters beat while he thereto was lash'd;

       At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he

       Roll'd on the beach, half-senseless, from the sea:

       There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung

       Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,

       From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,

       Should suck him back to her insatiate grave:

       And there he lay, full length, where he was flung,

       Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave,

       With just enough of life to feel its pain,

       And deem that it was saved, perhaps in vain.

       With slow and staggering effort he arose,

       But sunk again upon his bleeding knee

       And quivering hand; and then he look'd for those

       Who long had been his mates upon the sea;

       But none of them appear'd to share his woes,

       Save one, a corpse, from out the famish'd three,

       Who died two days before, and now had found

       An unknown barren beach for burial ground.

       And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast,

       And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand

       Swam round and round, and all his senses pass'd:

       He fell upon his side, and his stretch'd hand

       Droop'd dripping on the oar (their jurymast),

       And, like a wither'd lily, on the land

       His slender frame and pallid aspect lay,

       As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay.

       How long in his damp trance young Juan lay

       He knew not, for the earth was gone for him,

       And Time had nothing more of night nor day

       For his congealing blood, and senses dim;

       And how this heavy faintness pass'd away

       He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb,

       And tingling vein, seem'd throbbing back to life,

       For Death, though vanquish'd, still retired with strife.

       His eyes he open'd, shut, again unclosed,

       For all was doubt and dizziness; he thought

       He still was in the boat and had but dozed,

       And felt again with his despair o'erwrought,

       And wish'd it death in which he had reposed;

       And then once more his feelings back were brought,

       And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen

       A lovely female face of seventeen.

       'T was bending dose o'er his, and the small mouth

       Seem'd almost prying into his for breath;

       And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth

       Recall'd his answering spirits back from death;

       And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe

       Each pulse to animation, till beneath

       Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh

       To these kind efforts made a low reply.

      

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