No More Learning

Fletcher! Murray! Bob! [5] where are you?
Stretched along the deck like logs--
Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you!
Here's a rope's end for the dogs.
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses,
As the hatchway down he rolls,
Now his breakfast, now his verses,
Vomits forth--and damns our souls.
"Here's a stanza[6]
On Braganza--
Help! "--"A couplet? "--"No, a cup
Of warm water--"
"What's the matter? "
"Zounds! my liver's coming up;
I shall not survive the racket
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet. "

5.

Now at length we're off for Turkey,
Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky
May unship us in a crack.
But, since Life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on--as I do now.
Laugh at all things,
Great and small things,
Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we're quaffing,
Let's have laughing--
Who the devil cares for more? --
Some good wine! and who would lack it,
Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet?

Falmouth Roads, _June_ 30, 1809.
[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 230-232. ]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] [For Francis Hodgson (1781-1852), see _Letters_, 1898, i. 195,
_note_ 1. ]

[4] [Compare Peter Pindar's _Ode to a Margate Hoy_--
"Go, beauteous Hoy, in safety ev'ry inch!
That storm should wreck thee, gracious Heav'n forbid!
Whether commanded by brave Captain Finch
Or equally tremendous Captain Kidd. "]

[5] [Murray was "Joe" Murray, an ancient retainer of the "Wicked Lord. "
Bob was Robert Rushton, the "little page" of "Childe Harold's Good
Night. " (See _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 26, _note_ 1.