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1894
“The three-volume novel is extinct.”
FULL thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. | |
| It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; | |
| But, spite all modern notions, I’ve found her first and best— | |
| The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. | |
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| Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers. | 5 |
| We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. | |
| They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, | |
| And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. | |
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| By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of cook, | |
| Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took | 10 |
| With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, | |
| And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. | |
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| We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame— | |
| We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: | |
| We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. | 15 |
| We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell. | |
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| No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, | |
| The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. | |
| ’Twas fiddle in the foc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast, | |
| For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. | 20 |
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| I left ’em all in couples akissing on the decks. | |
| I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. | |
| In endless English comfort, by county-folk caressed, | |
| I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!… | |
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| That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again | 25 |
| Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. | |
| They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise | |
| In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. | |
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| Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace. | |
| Ay, blow your shrieking sirens at the deaf, grey-bearded seas! | 30 |
| Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest— | |
| And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest! | |
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| But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, | |
| At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, | |
| Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, | 35 |
| You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. | |
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| You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; | |
| You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figurehead; | |
| While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine | |
| Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine! | 40 |
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| Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck, | |
| With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. | |
| All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind, | |
| With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind. | |
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| Her crews are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make? | 45 |
| You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake? | |
| Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best— | |
| She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest! | |
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