Don Juan 05-006
Canto the Fifth

     VI
 
'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,
     When nights are equal, but not so the days;
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
     Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning
     In all, who o'er the great deep take their ways:
They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't;
Because if drown'd, they can't -- if spared, they won't.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 
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