COMFORT IN SICKNESS Poem by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff

Pizarro, at fifty, saw he had not
Gained much fame from his perilous life;
Plumes graced the hair of his first lady wife,
While a second tended his small family plot.

He was known as a murderer bold;
He had broken almost each and every law,
But that was precisely what laws were for
On Hispaniola - fifty years old.

His chance came: on a rotten caravelle
He made the journey never made before
And with a hundred men conquered Peru.

Fifty he was, only thirty I, who can tell
If I won't find the sixth continent's shore,
Though taking three steps is all I can do?