And the last two lines recall Robert Burns, who had said in his song commencing Contented wi little, and cantie wi mair:—
When at the blithe end of our journey at last,
Wha the deil ever thinks o’ the road he has passed?
Two centuries before Burns, Tasso said in his Gerusalemme Liberata (iii. 4):—
Cosi di naviganti, etc.
... e l’uno all ’altro il mostra e intanto oblia
La noja e il mal della passata via.
Or as Fairfax renders it:—
As when a troop of jolly sailors row, etc.
And each to other show the land in haste,