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18 I ask the longitude, time, and day?"

The first two given and compared,

The third—the Commandante stared!

The first of June? I make it second."

Said the stranger, "Then you 've wrongly reckoned;

I make it first: as you came this way,

You should have lost—d'ye see—a day—

Lost a day, as you plainly see,

On the hundred and eightieth degree."

Lost a day?" "Yes, if not rude,

When did you make east longitude?"

On the ninth of May our patron's day."

On the ninth?—you had no ninth of May!

Eighth and tenth was there—but stay"—

Too late—for the galleon bore away.

Lost was the day they should have kept,

Lost unheeded and lost unwept;

Lost in a way that made search vain,

Lost in the trackless and boundless main;

Lost like the day of Job's awful curse,

In his third chapter, third and fourth verse: