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,[99] But almost every other country's blue, When gazing on them, mystified by distance, We enter on our nautical existence. XIII. So Juan stood, bewildered on the deck: The wind sung, cordage strained, and sailors swore, And the ship creaked, 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. 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 unexpressed 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, Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto. XVII. And Juan wept, and much he sighed and thought, While his salt tears dropped 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.