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VII. TO DIONYSUS (59 lines)

(ll. 1-16) I will tell of Dionysus, the son of glorious Semele,
how he appeared on a jutting headland by the shore of the
fruitless sea, seeming like a stripling in the first flush of
manhood: his rich, dark hair was waving about him, and on his
strong shoulders he wore a purple robe.  Presently there came
swiftly over the sparkling sea Tyrsenian (30) pirates on a well-
decked ship -- a miserable doom led them on.  When they saw him
they made signs to one another and sprang out quickly, and
seizing him straightway, put him on board their ship exultingly;
for they thought him the son of heaven-nurtured kings.  They
sought to bind him with rude bonds, but the bonds would not hold
him, and the withes fell far away from his hands and feet: and he
sat with a smile in his dark eyes.  Then the helmsman understood
all and cried out at once to his fellows and said:

(ll. 17-24) 'Madmen!  What god is this whom you have taken and
bind, strong that he is?  Not even the well-built ship can carry
him.  Surely this is either Zeus or Apollo who has the silver
bow, or Poseidon, for he looks not like mortal men but like the
gods who dwell on Olympus.  Come, then, let us set him free upon
the dark shore at once: do not lay hands on him, lest he grow
angry and stir up dangerous winds and heavy squalls.'

(ll. 25-31) So said he: but the master chid him with taunting
words: 'Madman, mark the wind and help hoist sail on the ship:
catch all the sheets.  As for this fellow we men will see to him:
I reckon he is bound for Egypt or for Cyprus or to the
Hyperboreans or further still.  But in the end he will speak out
and tell us his friends and all his wealth and his brothers, now
that providence has thrown him in our way.'

(ll. 32-54) When he had said this, he had mast and sail hoisted
on the ship, and the wind filled the sail and the crew hauled
taut the sheets on either side.  But soon strange things were
seen among them.  First of all sweet, fragrant wine ran streaming
throughout all the black ship and a heavenly smell arose, so that
all the ****** were seized with amazement when they saw it.  And
all at once a vine spread out both ways along the top of the sail
with many clusters hanging down from it, and a dark ivy-plant
twined about the mast, blossoming with flowers, and with rich
berries growing on it; and all the thole-pins were covered with
garlands.  When the pirates saw all this, then at last they bade
the helmsman to put the ship to land.  But the god changed into a
dreadful lion there on the ship, in the bows, and roared loudly:
amidships also he showed his wonders and created a shaggy bear
which stood up ravening, while on the forepeak was the lion
glaring fiercely with scowling brows.  And so the sailors fled
into the stern and crowded bemused about the right-minded
helmsman, until suddenly the lion sprang upon the master and
seized him; and when the sailors saw it they leapt out overboard
one and all into the bright sea, escaping from a miserable fate,
and were changed into dolphins.  But on the helmsman Dionysus had
mercy and held him back and made him altogether happy, saying to
him:

(ll. 55-57) 'Take courage, good...; you have found favour with my
heart.  I am loud-crying Dionysus whom Cadmus' daughter Semele
bare of union with Zeus.'

(ll. 58-59) Hail, child of fair-faced Semele!  He who forgets you
can in no wise order sweet song.
Part I

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.’

He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—”
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

“And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And foward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.

It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.”

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—”With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.”

Part II

“The sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners’ hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The ****** sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”

Part III

“There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye—
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I ****** the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.

And straight the sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman’s mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!”

Part IV

‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.’—
“Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropped not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the ***** like pulses beat;
Forthe sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April ****-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

Part V

“Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all ‘gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.”

‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’
“Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now ’twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she ‘gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.’

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.’

Part VI

First Voice

But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?

Second Voice

Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast—

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.

First Voice

But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?

Second Voice

The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner’s trance is abated.

“I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapped: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own country?

We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord i
Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
and whispers of a summer sea.

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
   Eager she wields her *****; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
   The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
   Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
   Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
   Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
   The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
   Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
   Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!

PREFACE

If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the"o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity. This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a port{-} manteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known
words--

     "Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"

CONTENTS

Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The ******'s Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing

Fit the First.

THE LANDING

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
    As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
    By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
    That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
    What I tell you three times is true."

  The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
  A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
  And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
  Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
  Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a ******, that paced on the deck,
  Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
  Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
  He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
  And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
  With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
  They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
  He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pair of boots--but the worst of it was,
  He had wholly forgotten his name.

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
  Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
  But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
  He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
  And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

"His form in ungainly--his intellect small--"
  (So the Bellman would often remark)
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
  Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

He would joke with hy{ae}nas, returning their stare
  With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
  "Just to keep up its spirits," he said.

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--
  And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--
He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,
  No materials were to be had.

The last of the crew needs especial remark,
  Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Snark,"
  The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
  When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only **** Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
  And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
  There was only one ****** on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
  Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The ******, who happened to hear the remark,
  Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
  Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
  Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
  With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art,
  Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
  Undertaking another as well.

The ******'s best course was, no doubt, to procure
  A second-hand dagger-proof coat--
So the Baker advised it-- and next, to insure
  Its life in some Office of note:

This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire
  (On moderate terms), or for sale,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,
  And one Against Damage From Hail.

Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
  Whenever the Butcher was by,
The ****** kept looking the opposite way,
  And appeared unaccountably shy.

II.--THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

Fit the Second.

THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
  Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
  The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,
  Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
  A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
   "They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
  But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
  A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
  That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
  And that was to tingle his bell.

He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave
  Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
  What on earth was the helmsman to do?

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
  A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
  When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
   And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
  That the ship would not travel due West!

But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
  With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
  Which consisted to chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
  And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe--
  But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
  And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
  As he stood and delivered his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
  (They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
  While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
   (Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
  Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
  (Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
  We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
  The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
  The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
  Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
  With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
  That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
  And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
  Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
  And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
  Which is constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--
  A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
  To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
  From those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
  Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
  For the Baker had fainted away.

FIT III.--THE BAKER'S TALE.

Fit the Third.

THE BAKER'S TALE.

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
  They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
  They set him conundrums to guess.

When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
  His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
  And excitedly tingled his bell.

There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
  Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "**!" told his story of woe
  In an antediluvian tone.

"My father and mother were honest, though poor--"
  "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark--
  We have hardly a minute to waste!"

"I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears,
  "And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
  To help you in hunting the Snark.

"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
  Remarked, when I bade him farewell--"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
  As he angrily tingled his bell.

"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,
  " 'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens,
  And it's handy for striking a light.

" 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;
  You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
  You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
  In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
  That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
  If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
  And never be met with again!'

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
  When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
  Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!"
  The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
  It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--
  In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
  And I use it for striking a light:

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,
  In a moment (of this I am sure),
I shall softly and suddenly vanish away--
  And the notion I cannot endure!"

FIT IV.--THE HUNTING.

Fit the fourth.

THE HUNTING.

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
  "If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
  With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
  If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
  You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
  As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
  "I informed you the day we embar
He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy’s despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor’west gale, and all day long
Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ time with measured song.

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red
Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay,
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,
And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained with the fishers’ juice
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought
Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,
And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,
And by the questioning merchants made his way
Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet
Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd
Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat
Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring
The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd fling

The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang
His studded crook against the temple wall
To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang
Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall;
And then the clear-voiced maidens ‘gan to sing,
And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering,

A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery
Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb
Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee
Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil
Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked
spoil

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid
To please Athena, and the dappled hide
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade
Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried,
And from the pillared precinct one by one
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had
done.

And the old priest put out the waning fires
Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed
For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres
Came fainter on the wind, as down the road
In joyous dance these country folk did pass,
And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
And seemed to be in some entranced swoon
Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,
When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad,
And flinging wide the cedar-carven door
Beheld an awful image saffron-clad
And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared
From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and ruin flared

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled
The Gorgon’s head its leaden eyeballs rolled,
And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold
In passion impotent, while with blind gaze
The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp
Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen *****
Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast
Divide the folded curtains of the night,
And knelt upon the little ****, and prayed in holy fright.

And guilty lovers in their venery
Forgat a little while their stolen sweets,
Deeming they heard dread Dian’s bitter cry;
And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats
Ran to their shields in haste precipitate,
Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet.

For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear,
And the air quaked with dissonant alarums
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,
And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed,
And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cavalcade.

Ready for death with parted lips he stood,
And well content at such a price to see
That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,
The marvel of that pitiless chastity,
Ah! well content indeed, for never wight
Since Troy’s young shepherd prince had seen so wonderful a sight.

Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh,
And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair,
And from his limbs he throw the cloak away;
For whom would not such love make desperate?
And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands violate

Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,
And bared the ******* of polished ivory,
Till from the waist the peplos falling down
Left visible the secret mystery
Which to no lover will Athena show,
The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of
snow.

Those who have never known a lover’s sin
Let them not read my ditty, it will be
To their dull ears so musicless and thin
That they will have no joy of it, but ye
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,
Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen yet awhile.

A little space he let his greedy eyes
Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight
Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,
And then his lips in hungering delight
Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck
He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion’s will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,
And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In exquisite pulsation, and the pain
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew.

They who have never seen the daylight peer
Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain,
And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear
And worshipped body risen, they for certain
Will never know of what I try to sing,
How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering.

The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,
The sign which shipmen say is ominous
Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood;

And sought a little stream, which well he knew,
For oftentimes with boyish careless shout
The green and crested grebe he would pursue,
Or snare in woven net the silver trout,
And down amid the startled reeds he lay
Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the day.

On the green bank he lay, and let one hand
Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly,
And soon the breath of morning came and fanned
His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly
The tangled curls from off his forehead, while
He on the running water gazed with strange and secret smile.

And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak
With his long crook undid the wattled cotes,
And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke
Curled through the air across the ripening oats,
And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed
As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.

And when the light-foot mower went afield
Across the meadows laced with threaded dew,
And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,
And from its nest the waking corncrake flew,
Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
‘It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,’ but others, ‘Nay,
It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.’

And when they nearer came a third one cried,
‘It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.’

So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
And no man dared to cross the open green,
And on that day no olive-tree was slain,
Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain,

Save when the neat-herd’s lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

A little girl ran laughing from the farm,
Not thinking of love’s secret mysteries,
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm
And all his manlihood, with longing eyes
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity
Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily.

Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise,
And now and then the shriller laughter where
The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,
And now and then a little tinkling bell
As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-rat
Breasting the little ripples manfully
Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough
Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the
slough.

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds
As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,
The ouzel-**** splashed circles in the reeds
And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s glass,
Which scarce had caught again its imagery
Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly.

But little care had he for any thing
Though up and down the beech the squirrel played,
And from the copse the linnet ‘gan to sing
To its brown mate its sweetest serenade;
Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen
The ******* of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen.

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats
With whistling pipe across the rocky road,
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes
Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode
Of coming storm, and the belated crane
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,
And from the gloomy forest went his way
Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,
And came at last unto a little quay,
And called his mates aboard, and took his seat
On the high ****, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping
sheet,

And steered across the bay, and when nine suns
Passed down the long and laddered way of gold,
And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons
To the chaste stars their confessors, or told
Their dearest secret to the downy moth
That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth

Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes
And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked
As though the lading of three argosies
Were in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked,
And darkness straightway stole across the deep,
Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep,

And the moon hid behind a tawny mask
Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean’s marge
Rose the red plume, the huge and horned casque,
The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!
And clad in bright and burnished panoply
Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!

To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks
Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet
Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks,
And, marking how the rising waters beat
Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried
To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side

But he, the overbold adulterer,
A dear profaner of great mysteries,
An ardent amorous idolater,
When he beheld those grand relentless eyes
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’
Leapt from the lofty **** into the chill and churning foam.

Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,
One dancer left the circling galaxy,
And back to Athens on her clattering car
In all the pride of venged divinity
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,
And the old pilot bade the trembling crew
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen
Close to the stern a dim and giant form,
And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

And no man dared to speak of Charmides
Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought,
And when they reached the strait Symplegades
They beached their galley on the shore, and sought
The toll-gate of the city hastily,
And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery.
“After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into
the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there
is dawn and sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to
the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep
and waited till day should break.
  “Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I
sent some men to Circe’s house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut
firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and
after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral
rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised
a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the
oar that he had been used to row with.
  “While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got
back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast
as she could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread,
meat, and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, ‘You
have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades,
and you will have died twice, to other people’s once; now, then,
stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with
your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning. In the meantime I will
tell Ulysses about your course, and will explain everything to him
so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure either by land or
sea.’
  “We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong
day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came
on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables
of the ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away
from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all
about our adventures.
  “‘So far so good,’ said she, when I had ended my story, ‘and now pay
attention to what I am about to tell you—heaven itself, indeed,
will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens
who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too
close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children
will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and
warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great
heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still
rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your
men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you
can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you
stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must
lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself, that you may have the
pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you,
then they must bind you faster.
  “‘When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you
coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will
lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for
yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against
which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the
blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird
may pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father
Jove, but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father
Jove has to send another to make up their number; no ship that ever
yet came to these rocks has got away again, but the waves and
whirlwinds of fire are freighted with wreckage and with the bodies
of dead men. The only vessel that ever sailed and got through, was the
famous Argo on her way from the house of Aetes, and she too would have
gone against these great rocks, only that Juno piloted her past them
for the love she bore to Jason.
  “‘Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost
in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never
clear not even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty
hands and twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for
it runs sheer up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the
middle of it there is a large cavern, looking West and turned
towards Erebus; you must take your ship this way, but the cave is so
high up that not even the stoutest archer could send an arrow into it.
Inside it Scylla sits and yelps with a voice that you might take to be
that of a young hound, but in truth she is a dreadful monster and no
one—not even a god—could face her without being terror-struck. She
has twelve mis-shapen feet, and six necks of the most prodigious
length; and at the end of each neck she has a frightful head with
three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so that they
would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep within
her shady cell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the rock,
fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can
catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems. No ship ever
yet got past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her
heads at once, and carries off a man in each mouth.
  “‘You will find the other rocks lie lower, but they are so close
together that there is not more than a bowshot between them. [A
large fig tree in full leaf grows upon it], and under it lies the
******* whirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she
***** forth her waters, and three times she ***** them down again; see
that you be not there when she is *******, for if you are, Neptune
himself could not save you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive
ship by as fast as you can, for you had better lose six men than
your whole crew.’
  “‘Is there no way,’ said I, ‘of escaping Charybdis, and at the
same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?’
  “‘You dare-devil,’ replied the goddess, you are always wanting to
fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten
even by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is
savage, extreme, rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for
it; your best chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can,
for if you dawdle about her rock while you are putting on your armour,
she may catch you with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up
another half dozen of your men; so drive your ship past her at full
speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla’s dam, bad
luck to her; she will then stop her from making a second raid upon
you.
  “‘You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will
see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god-
seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in
each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and
they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are
children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she
had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the
Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look
after their father’s flocks and herds. If you leave these flocks
unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after
much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn
you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and
even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad
plight, after losing all your men.’
  “Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven,
whereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to
loose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took
their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars.
Presently the great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a
fair wind that blew dead aft, and stayed steadily with us, keeping our
sails well filled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear,
and let her go as wind and helmsman headed her.
  “Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, ‘My friends,
it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies
that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so
that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she
said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most
beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them
myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to
the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright,
with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the
rope’s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me
free, then bind me more tightly still.’
  “I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we
reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very
favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a
breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the
sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the
water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large
wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax
in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between
the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I
stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to
the mast as I stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing
themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship
was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore
and began with their singing.
  “‘Come here,’ they sang, ‘renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean
name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song—and he who
listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know
all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before
Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the
whole world.’
  “They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear
them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me
free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes
bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of
the Sirens’ voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and
unbound me.
  “Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave
from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men
were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the
whole sea resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship
stayed where it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round,
therefore, and exhorted them man by man not to lose heart.
  “‘My friends,’ said I, ‘this is not the first time that we have been
in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the
Cyclops shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise
counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as
well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on
with might and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders;
attend to them, for the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from
these steaming rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the
slip and be over yonder before you know where you are, and you will be
the death of us.’
  “So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful
monster Scylla, for I knew the men would not on rowing if I did, but
would huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey
Circe’s strict instructions—I put on my armour. Then seizing two
strong spears I took my stand on the ship Is bows, for it was there
that I expected first to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my
men so much harm; but I could not make her out anywhere, though I
strained my eyes with looking the gloomy rock all over and over
  “Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one
hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept ******* up
the salt water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a
cauldron when it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray
reached the top of the rocks on either side. When she began to ****
again, we could see the water all inside whirling round and round, and
it made a deafening sound as it broke against the rocks. We could
see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the
men were at their wit’s ends for fear. While we were taken up with
this, and were expecting each moment to be our last, Scylla pounced
down suddenly upon us and snatched up my six best men. I was looking
at once after both ship and men, and in a moment I saw their hands and
feet ever so high above me, struggling in the air as Scylla was
carrying them off, and I heard them call out my name in one last
despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand, upon some
jutting rock throws bait into the water to deceive the poor little
fishes, and spears them with the ox’s horn with which his spear is
shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he catches them one by
one—even so did Scylla land these panting creatures on her rock and
munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and
stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony. This was the
most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages.
  “When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and
terrible Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god,
where were the goodly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun
Hyperion. While still at sea in my ship I could bear the cattle lowing
as they came home to the yards, and the sheep bleating. Then I
remembered what the blind Theban prophet Teiresias had told me, and
how carefully Aeaean Circe had warned me to shun the island of the
blessed sun-god. So being much troubled I said to the men, ‘My men,
I know you are hard pressed, but listen while I tell you the
prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe warned
me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god, for it was here, she
said, that our worst danger would lie. Head the ship, therefore,
away from the island.’
  “The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me
an insolent answer. ‘Ulysses,’ said he, ‘you are cruel; you are very
strong yourself and never get worn out; you seem to be made of iron,
and now, though your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep,
you will not let them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this
island, but bid them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on
through the watches of the flying night. It is by night that the winds
blow hardest and do so much damage; how can we escape should one of
those sudden squalls spring up from South West or West, which so often
wreck a vessel when our lords the gods are unpropitious? Now,
therefore, let us obey the of night and prepare our supper here hard
by the ship; to-morrow morning we will go on board again and put out
to sea.’
  “Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that
heaven meant us a mischief and said, ‘You force me to yield, for you
are many against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his
solemn oath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock
of sheep, he will not be so mad as to **** a single head of either,
but will be satisfied with the food that Circe has given us.’
  “They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their
oath we made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of
fresh water, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon
as they had had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about
their poor comrades whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten; this set
them weeping and they went on crying till they fell off into a sound
sleep.
  “In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their
places, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that
land and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth
out of the heavens. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn,
appeared, we brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein
the sea-nymphs hold their courts and dances, and
An Isle rose up from the ocean swell
On the seventeenth of June,
It was totally unexpected by
The M.V. Cameroon,
She’d sailed with seven passengers
And some cargo in the hold,
They all kept well to their cabins for
The deck was more than cold.

The Captain up on the bridge had checked
His maps before they sailed,
Had marked his course dead reckoning
Though the gyro compass failed,
They’d been at sea for eleven days
So he took a fix on the stars,
Then left the wheel to the Bosun while
He searched for the coffee jar.

The ship ground up on a coral reef
At two in the morning, sharp,
The night was black as a midden since
The clouds had hidden the stars,
The hull bit deep in the coral as
It drove ahead with its way,
Grinding slowly to come to halt
Just in from a new-formed bay.

‘There isn’t supposed to be land out here,’
The Bosun cried to Lars,
The Captain said, ‘I fixed a point,
Dead reckoning by the stars!
There shouldn’t be land in a hundred miles,’
But the ship was high and dry,
‘It must have come up from the ocean floor,’
The Bosun said, ‘but why?’

The passengers spilled out onto the deck
With cries and shouts in the gloom,
‘What have you done, the ship’s a wreck,’
Said the Banker, Gordon Bloom.
The sisters, Jan and Margaret Young
Burst out in sobs and tears,
‘How are you going to float it off?
We might be here for years!’

At daylight they could see the extent
Of the distant lava flow,
‘Lucky we’re not on the other side
Or we’d all be dead, you know.’
The tide came in and the tide went out
But the ship was high and dry,
As clouds of steam from the lava flow
Poured out, and into the sky.

‘We’re not gonna starve,’ said Andy Hill
As he peered down onto the reef,
As thousands of ***** and lobsters crawled
‘There’s plenty of them to eat.’
They lowered him down on a rope, along
With the engineer, Bob Teck,
Where they gathered the lobsters up by hand
And tossed them, up on the deck.

The evening meal was a feast that night,
They ate and they drank their fill,
‘Too much,’ said Oliver Aston-Barr
‘I think I’m going to be ill.’
But Jennifer Deane, Costumier
Had an appetite for four,
She ate the scraps that the others left
And was calling out for more.

The following morning all was still
Til Jennifer Deane came out,
She roused them all with a frightened scream,
And then continued to shout:
‘I’ve got some horrible bug inside
And I’ve lost my sense of taste,
It must have come from the lobsters, for
It’s eaten half of my face!’

The lobsters must have been undercooked
For the symptoms would appal,
A necrotizing flesh eater
Had started on them all,
The flesh was eaten from Andy’s hand
And the leg of Gordon Bloom,
While the sisters Jan and Margaret Young
Lay screaming in their room.

The sickness took them rapidly,
For Jennifer Deane had died,
They had no place to bury her
So threw her over the side,
The ***** then swarmed and attacked her there,
Ate all of her flesh away,
There was little left of Jennifer Deane
Before the end of the day.

Each time that one of them died, the rest
Would fling them over the side,
The bodies had piled up higher out there
Than those alive, inside,
Til finally, Oliver Aston-Barr
Was last to die, on the bridge,
Of the Motor Vessel Cameroon,
Upthrust on a lava ridge.

A winter storm was to float it off,
It drifted out with the tide,
A rusted hulk with ‘The Cameroon’
Paint peeling, off from the side.
An ancient freighter, crossing its path
Drove past it, steel on steel,
And that’s when the helmsman held his breath,
‘There’s a skeleton at the wheel!’

David Lewis Paget
Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into
the water and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep
on board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind.
Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew
dead aft and stayed steadily with us keeping our sails all the time
well filled; so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear and
let her go as the wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails
were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went
down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep
waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the
Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays
of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down
again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long
melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship, took the
sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came
to the place of which Circe had told us.
  “Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my
sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering
to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and
thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the
whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising
them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren
heifer for them, the best I had, and would load the pyre with good
things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a
black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed
sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let
the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping up
from Erebus—brides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil,
maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been
killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they
came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange
kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw
them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the
two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same
time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I
was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts
come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions.
  “The first ghost ‘that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he
had not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body
unwaked and unburied in Circe’s house, for we had had too much else to
do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw him: ‘Elpenor,’
said I, ‘how did you come down here into this gloom and darkness?
You have here on foot quicker than I have with my ship.’
  “‘Sir,’ he answered with a groan, ‘it was all bad luck, and my own
unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe’s
house, and never thought of coming down again by the great staircase
but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul down to
the house of Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have
left behind you, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father
who brought you up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the
one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that
when you leave this limbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean
island. Do not go thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you,
or I may bring heaven’s anger upon you; but burn me with whatever
armour I have, build a barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell
people in days to come what a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant
over my grave the oar I used to row with when I was yet alive and with
my messmates.’ And I said, ‘My poor fellow, I will do all that you
have asked of me.’
  “Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the
one side of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the
ghost of my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then
came the ghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I
had left her alive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when
I saw her, but even so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come
near the blood till I had asked my questions of Teiresias.
  “Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden
sceptre in his hand. He knew me and said, ‘Ulysses, noble son of
Laertes, why, poor man, have you left the light of day and come down
to visit the dead in this sad place? Stand back from the trench and
withdraw your sword that I may drink of the blood and answer your
questions truly.’
  “So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of
the blood he began with his prophecy.
  “You want to know,’ said he, ‘about your return home, but heaven
will make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the
eye of Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for
having blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home
if you can restrain yourself and your companions when your ship
reaches the Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and
cattle belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything.
If you leave these flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of getting
home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm
them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and
of your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return in
bad plight after losing all your men, [in another man’s ship, and
you will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun by
high-handed people, who are devouring your substance under the pretext
of paying court and making presents to your wife.
  “‘When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and
after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you
must take a well-made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a
country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and
oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain
token which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and
will say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your
shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a
ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. Then go home and offer hecatombs
to an the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death
shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very
gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people
shall bless you. All that I have said will come true].’
  “‘This,’ I answered, ‘must be as it may please heaven, but tell me
and tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother’s ghost close by
us; she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am
her own son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir,
how I can make her know me.’
  “‘That,’ said he, ‘I can soon do Any ghost that you let taste of the
blood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not
let them have any blood they will go away again.’
  “On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for
his prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was
until my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once
and spoke fondly to me, saying, ‘My son, how did you come down to this
abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for
the living to see these places, for between us and them there are
great and terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can
cross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you all
this time trying to find your way home from Troy, and have you never
yet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?’
  “‘Mother,’ said I, ‘I was forced to come here to consult the ghost
of the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the
Achaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing
but one long series of misfortunes from the very first day that I
set out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight
the Trojans. But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die?
Did you have a long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy
passage to eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whom
I left behind me; is my property still in their hands, or has some one
else got hold of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it?
Tell me again what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is;
does she live with my son and guard my estate securely, or has she
made the best match she could and married again?’
  “My mother answered, ‘Your wife still remains in your house, but she
is in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both
night and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property,
and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain
largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a
magistrate, and how every one invites him; your father remains at
his old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has no
comfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in
front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in
summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the
vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown anyhow upon the ground. He
grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers
more and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in this
wise: heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house,
nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear
people out and **** them, but my longing to know what you were doing
and the force of my affection for you—this it was that was the
death of me.’
  “Then I tried to find some way of embracing my mother’s ghost.
Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but
each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom,
and being touched to the quick I said to her, ‘Mother, why do you
not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms
around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our
sorrows even in the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a
still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom
only?’
  “‘My son,’ she answered, ‘most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not
Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when
they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;
these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has
left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now,
however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note
all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.’
  “Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the
wives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in
crowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question them
severally. In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the
keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all
drinking the blood at once. So they came up one after the other, and
each one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage.
  “The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of
Cretheus the son of ******. She fell in love with the river Enipeus
who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she
was taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her
lover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave
arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god,
whereon he loosed her ****** girdle and laid her in a deep slumber.
When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in
his own and said, ‘Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of the
gods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time
twelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go
home, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.’
  “Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias
and Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might.
Pelias was a great ******* of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other
lived in Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely,
Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer.
  “Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of
having slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two
sons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates,
and built a wall all round it; for strong though they were they
could not hold Thebes till they had walled it.
  “Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove
indomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,
and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.
  “I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king OEdipodes whose awful lot
it was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her
after having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole
story to the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief
for the spite the gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the house
of the mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the
avenging spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother—to his ruing
bitterly thereafter.
  “Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having
given priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion
son of Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos.
She bore Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that
marvellously lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country
round; but Neleus would only give her to him who should raid the
cattle of Iphicles from the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a
hard task. The only man who would undertake to raid them was a certain
excellent seer, but the will of heaven was against him, for the
rangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison; nevertheless
when a full year had passed and the same season came round again,
Iphicles set him at liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of
heaven. Thus, then, was the will of Jove accomplished.
  “And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous
sons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both
these heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive,
for by a special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to life
again, each one of them every other day throughout all time, and
they have the rank of gods.
  “After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace
of Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were
short lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this
world, and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years
old they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the
chest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried
to set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the
top of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they would
have done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto,
killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hair
upon their cheeks or chin.
  “Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the
magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens,
but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her
in the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.
  “I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own
husband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name
every single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw,
and it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew,
or here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves
“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
    Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
    Why dost thou haunt me?”

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
    Gleam in December;
And, like the water’s flow
Under December’s snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
    From the heart’s chamber.

“I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
    No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man’s curse;
    For this I sought thee.

“Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic’s strand,
I, with my childish hand,
    Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
    Trembled to walk on.

“Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
    Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf’s bark,
Until the soaring lark
    Sang from the meadow.

“But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair’s crew,
O’er the dark sea I flew
    With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
    By our stern orders.

“Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long Winter out;
Often our midnight shout
    Set the ***** crowing,
As we the Berserk’s tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
    Filled to o’erflowing.

“Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
    Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
    Fell their soft splendor.

“I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest’s shade
    Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
    By the hawk frighted.

“Bright in her father’s hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
    Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter’s hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
    To hear my story.

“While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
    The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
    Blew the foam lightly.

“She was a Prince’s child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
    I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew’s flight,
Why did they leave that night
    Her nest unguarded?

“Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
    Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armed hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
    With twenty horsemen.

“Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
    When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
    Laugh as he hailed us.

“And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
‘Death!’ was the helmsman’s hail,
    ‘Death without quarter!’
Mid-ships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
    Through the black water!

“As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
    With his prey laden,—
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
    Bore I the maiden.

“Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o’er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
    Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady’s bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
  Stands looking seaward.

“There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden’s tears;
She had forgot her fears,
    She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne’er shall the sun arise
    On such another!

“Still grew my ***** then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
    The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
    Oh, death was grateful!

“Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
    My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!”
    Thus the tale ended.
kirk Jan 2019
A starship is in orbit, around an unknown planet.
Science officer Mr Spock, is just about to scan it.
Lieutenant Uhura's on the bridge, she's on communications.
Unscrambling the garbled messages, from different alien nations.

At the weapons station, Pavel Chekov's a good aim.
Birds of Prey and battle ships, torpedoes locked on again.
Helmsman Hikaru Sulu, he will take evasive action.
Avoiding fleets of enemy ships, with his fast reaction.

Bio beds are operational, report to the sick bay.
Doctor McCoy's ready to heal, with his hypospray.
Christine chapel will assist, she is the ships top nurse.
Helping with the medi scan, if anything gets worse.

Way down in engineering, you will find Montgomery Scott.
Tending to his engines, he's giving it all he's got.
The captains personal Yeoman, will always lend a hand.
She's versatile and beautiful, and known as Janice Rand.

A planets cultural Interference, this directive is our prime.
Is Kevin Reilly going to sing, "Kathleen" one more time.
This is Starfleet's finest crew, it comes as no surprise.
Captain James T Kirk's in command of the Enterprise.

Tricorders at the ready, step of the turbo lift.
The Galileo Seven needs Dilithium, the shuttle's set adrift.
Let's look in the engine room, there's an Enemy Within.
Transporters are malfunctioning, creating an evil twin.

The Changeling Nomad got destroyed, a classic computer error.
They matched the Romulans ship exact, in Balance Of Terror.
Tomorrow is Yesterday, with a sling shot around the sun.
Phantom bullets will not ****, The Spectre of the Gun.

A shape shifting monster is aboard, a Man Trap to revolt.
Just give it what it desires, a large amount of salt.
Young men like Mr Evans, shouldn't be all that complex.
He can **** with just a look, that's why he's Charlie X.

Wasn't it the Deadly Years, when the crew got old.
Jack the ripper then returned, in Wolf In The Fold.
Pon Far fighting to the death, this was a Time Amok.
Believing captain Kirk was dead, and killed by Mr Spock.

McCoy had to heal the creature, before they could Embark.
The Horter was protecting her young, in The Devil in the Dark.
Vampire clouds smell sickly sweet, It was a valuable lesson.
Firing sooner makes no difference, cos it was a pure Obsession.

Kirk used the Corbomite Manoeuvre, Balok was just a boy.
Captain Garf took over the asylum, in Whom Gods Destroy.
A parent's death, no remorse, And The Children Shall now Lead.
Kahn's a genetically engineered superman, found frozen in Space Seed.

They had Trouble with Tribbles, too fast in reproduction.
Light In Operation Annihilate, caused the parasites destruction.
Caught in the Tholian Web, lost in between dimensions.
Mudd's Women had an agenda, and their own hidden intentions.

An Arena was selected, so Kirk could fight the Gorn.
It's guaranteed when Kirk fights, his shirt is always torn.
On a Journey to Babel, Sarek hadn't seen his son for years.
Him and Spock are logical, and both have pointed ears.

What are Little Girls Made Of, was replaced by robotic law.
Three Witches sent a warning, to beware of the Catspaw.
You will be accelerated, within the Wink Of An Eye.
Doctor McCoy will say " he's dead Jim" if anyone should Die.

United planets quest for piece, the federations ultimate desire.
The Klingon war, a warriors way, to create their own empire.
Phasers charged and set to stun, grab your communicators.
Save the ship, protect the crew from all war instigators.

The final frontier is out there, turn over treks first page.
Captain Pike was in command, and captured in The Cage.
Number one was female, but she didn't take the glory.
Pike relived The Menagerie, but it's still the same first story.

We've scanned for alien life forms, and stepped through the Guardians door.
We have been to Vulcan, and Where No Man One Has Gone Before.
So live long and prosper, the captain is on deck.
Beam up the landing party, to continue our star trek.
As many Trek fans will realise many episodes have been referenced in this poem about the original and in my opinion the best Star Trek Series.
For those of you that are not as familiar with the series here is a list of the episodes mentioned.

Season 1:

The Cage
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Man Trap
Charlie X
The Enemy Within
Mudd's Women
What Are Little Girls Made Of ?
The Corbomite Manoeuvre
The Menagerie
Balance Of Terror
The Galileo Seven
Arena
Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Space Seed
The Devil In The Dark
Operation Annihilate

Season 2:

Amok Time
The Changeling
Catspaw
Journey To Babel
The Deadly Years
Obsession
Wolf In The Fold
The Trouble With Tribbles

Season 3:

And The Children Shall Lead
Spectre Of The Gun
The Tholian Web
Wink Of An Eye
Whom Gods Destroy

I hope that if this is read that it will give you
a slight insight into some of the situations encountered by the crew of the Enterprise and what happened during their five year mission.
Of course if you want more detail you will have to consult Starfleet records which come on DVD discs and see for yourselves.
Is there more to come well who knows, space is of course infinite and there are always possibilities.
Perig3e Sep 2010
A nameless helmsman
Whose fallible hands
Duty calls to act god like
Guiding a ship of life
Off the coast of Newfoundland
Through a night of blue white ice halls,
Until their combined Neptune fate
Entombs nearly all
To an eternal Atlantic floor
Of dark and frigid sea.
All rights reserved by the author
1198

A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care—
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew.
The Bellman's Speech

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank"
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt: but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean
And that was to tingle his bell.

He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
What on earth was the helmsman to do?

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked".

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!

But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view
Which consisted of chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe--
But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
As he stood and delivered his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
(They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
(Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavour of Will-o'-the-Wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--
A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
From those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I feel it my duty to say
Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away.
PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line

''Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural
History---I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining
how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be
revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for
replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the
ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to
appeal to the Bellman about it---he would only refer to his Naval
Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which
none of them had ever been able to understand---so it generally ended
in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman
used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong,
but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, ''No one shall speak to the Man at the
Helm'', had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words
''and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one''. So remonstrance
was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next
varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually
sailed backwards.

This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it
a refuge from the Baker's constant complaints about the insufficient
blacking of his three pairs of boots.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the
Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that
has often been asked me, how to pronounce ''slithy toves''. The
''i'' in ''slithy'' is long, as in ''writhe''; and ''toves'' is
pronounced so as to rhyme with ''groves''. Again, the first ''o'' in
''borogoves'' is pronounced like the ''o'' in ''borrow''. I have
heard people try to give it the sound of the ''o'' in ''worry''.
Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in
that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one
word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words ''fuming'' and ''furious''. Make up
your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which
you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts
incline ever so little towards ''fuming'', you will say
''fuming-furious''; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards
''furious'', you will say ''furious-fuming''; but if you have that
rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say
''frumious''.

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words---

''Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!''

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or
Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not
possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that,
rather than die, he would have gasped out ''Rilchiam!''.
Marieta Maglas Mar 2016
(Fargo was sad. He said,)



''I was a helmsman some time ago; '' Gian asked him, ''what happened? ''
''It's a long story; I'm an honest man; Geraldine trusts me
With her confidences; I had saved the women who had trusted
Me, except Bella who died before I could save her; she



(Fargo continued,)



Died in the peace of the Lord; '' Hector said, ''God's will for us is good.''
Abseil said, '' Maybe I wouldn't have been able to use my hands
Without your help; you're a good man, but you're little understood.''
''When I wasn't able to do the good things, I've made some good plans.''



(Ismail said,)



''We can do small things with great love; you hated the pirates.
Sometimes, being too passionate can be a bad thing; the lack
Of control is filled with passion; I see rightly in your iris.''
''When I was on the shore, I saw a ship and my hope came back.



(Fargo continued,)




I had to swim and ask for help; I've found three drunken men,
Who were sleeping on the deck; I've entered the captain's cabin
And I've found some documents demonstrating that they robbed ten
Ship passengers; I've heard about robbing on the galleon.’’



(John said,)



'' And how did you deduce that the ship belonged to the pirates? ''
Fargo answered, '' I've found the papers and the treasure
That belong to me; '' Brisbon said, ''Show me these documents! ''
'' A letter is sent to Fargo Escalante, Cantabria, for sure,



(Fargo continued,)



By Francisco Cerda along with some jewelry and money-
A payment for a service; I had waited for it to solve
My financial problems; then, I took a job; '' ''It's mighty funny, ''
Said John; '' My fortune is in my house because I fight to evolve.''



(Suaram asked Fargo,)



Why did you get a job to work on a carrack while knowing
To survive on a galley so well? '' '' As a sailor on
A carrack, I could do difficult navigation during
The storms; '' ''Freddy used to tell me sailing stories at the dawn, ''



(..said Sam, Brisbon replied,)



''He trusted me while sending me in the ports to hire the sailors.
Then, I've controlled the work of the crew on the ship; '' Sulim replied,
''He needs all our help; '' Gian said, '' while sailing, we will be failures
If we don't communicate each other; it is not in pride



(Gian continued,)



To learn how to correct the mistakes; when the ship is broken,
We sink; '' John said, '' we were hired to do many jobs because
Freddy didn't have enough money; '' ''when the fire was smokin',
He lost everything; the fatigue struck us with its claws, ''



(Replied Sam. Suaram said,)

''We have been too exhausted to fight for life; we could all die.''
''Gino, Nico, and Dino died; I could become invalid, ''
Said Abseil; Sam replied, '' you're saved, 'cause God is above the sky! ''
''Who pays us when we can't work? '' Asked Gian; his frowning face was pallid.



(Cosma replied,)



'' When you don't work, you're starving to death; '' Ismail said,
''Fargo had been persevering until he found a safe place.
He's a fighter and an example to us all; he's our head.''
''He should check the kitchen equipment; for me, he's in disgrace, ''



(Said John; Fargo fell asleep and couldn't hear them. Hector said,)



''He rescued the women while asking God for forgiveness.
He used too many details while describing his adventures
And achievements; he has the sleeping pirate as a witness,
When he says that the documents belong to him; '' '' these letters



Said Gian and continued,)

Could belong to any person called Fargo; '' '' they used
The stranger's dogs to find him; I think it's about money, ''
Said Sulim, '' He brought two galleons and soldiers; I'm confused.
He's a powerful man having some secrets; '' ''Don't be funny!



(Replied John, but he became meditative and continued,)



The women love Fargo; '' ''he should inform the authorities
About the documents, '' said Gian; Sam replied, ''I think he did it
And he received their protection; '' '' he has secret priorities, ''
Said John, '' it's not easy to be honest, but I have to admit



(John continued,)



That I do anything for money except stealing; ''
Sam said, '' It's pleasant to live in piracy and sad to be
A victim of it, 'cause it means the loss of any feeling.''
''I am human as long as no human loss is known in me, ''



(Concluded John.)
(The next day, Geraldine and Frederick tried to convince Fargo to tell the authorities that he had been a pirate, but Fargo said that he had played only a game to take back the treasure, which had been stolen by the pirates.)

(...to be continued...)

Poem by Marieta Maglas
Overwhelmed Jan 2012
less of an island
and
more of a
ship

moving steadily
across the
vastness of the
seas

less of a loner
and
more of an entire
crew within one
man

needless of others,
and thus,
not needing them
at all

I am captain,
first mate,
helmsman,
and
cook

I do everything I need
and everything I want

I lay anchor
only to get that which
I cannot provide
myself

like love, personality,
and sanity
Hakikur Rahman Sep 2021
(Continued from 5/10)

When Gilbert reaches
the other side of the flying river
(as if the water was not flowing
But, remained still and seem
the boat was not floating on it
but flying),
while stepping down,
he asked the one eyed helmsman,
“how do I go back to my
home?”

The helmsman replied
in his usual voice,
“time travels fast,
thus the whispers of the forest,
I will know what to do next.”

Thus he took farewell and
approaches the dark forest-
unknown birds chirping,
wild wind was blowing,
coyotes were howling from the distant
even during the day
(because inside the dark forest,
it is so dark and it seems
always night).

He was afraid, but not that much
afraid, when his sisters face
was flashing before his eyes-
thus he took bold steps to
reach the destination.

Continued….
Pure fiction. Any similarity should be treated as mere coincidence.
Hakikur Rahman Aug 2021
(Continued from 4/10)

The wicked witch
by looking at the future glass
shut down her eyes
with much explanations
and whisper into his ears
silently-
she says, “It is ultimate danger
to cross the river
and the dark forest
to reach the spiritual ghost.
but, I will give you
this lucky charm. You keep it
on your neck
and all the evils will be
frightened of you.”

Choosing a shiny day
he started his journey
towards the dark forest
by taking a very few things
those were necessary he thought arrived.

He arrived at the riverside
to cross,
an one eyed helmsman was there,
as if he was waiting for Gilbert-
the one eyed helmsman said
in a very dull but deep voice,

“I don't take impure souls to cross
the river and since you are a pure soul
I will take you to the other side.”

Thus he started crossing the river.

Continued…
Pure fiction. Any similarity should be treated as mere coincidence.
mark john junor Jan 2014
the lights from the street below
shine weakly into the silent room
she lay in the tangled sheets
staring off into the night
a television set oddly turned to face the wall flickers while
its low volume garbles its incessant whispered babbling
like some deranged man talking to himself
the scents of ******* thick in the air
there is a tray of food gathering dust
a bottle of wine untouched
she is motionless
the **** skin of her face glistens in the
shifting shadows of her silent thoughts

i sit in the hardback chair
with difficult breathing apparatus trailing my mental footsteps
i tread carefully through the narrow dark wood
of her languid eye with small talk
laying out a feast of interesting topics
she is not hungry

a storm flashes lightening far out to sea
images come to the mind of a ship chasing the dawn
desperate to break free of the natures fury
and the captain at the helm
heroic figure standing fast against the odds
holding to the wheel and shouting to all hands
the rain falling in tangled sheets
focus returns to the room
she is falling motionless entangled in the beds sheets
i am the brave helmsman standing fast
this ship has already sunk

daylight appeases the minds of the
littered minefield of broken and bent on the bedroom floor
so they now allow begrudging paths safely to be seen
her eyes have closed
sleep
the dust encrusted food and the stale wine
make a feast for the birds who's small wing fluttering
are the only sound
the sun's heavy light falls in a narrow shaft
that glows against the dark wood background
i slowly ease my hand into its warmth
like a swimmer testing the waters
i dive in
and my soul swims the shaft of light
up to the bright world
leaving this place of shadows
and this woman of darker dreams

she awakens hours later
to find me laying on the floor with one hand extended out to
where the sun once held sway
laying there wrapped in my dreams of liquid light
dreaming of the day just past
and the days to come
she lay next to me
and cups me in her arms
while weak lights from the street below
shine up into our quiet room
Universe Poems Oct 2022
Low
High
Whispers
You can't deny
Those thoughts
Docking at many ports,
back at sea,
can you hear me
Take the helm
Join the business,
of the master helmsman sell
Become the captain as well

© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney
wehttam Jun 2014
Friction into reality; I should say into fiction into life.  Small beads form on the upper lip,  Shoes strings become untied, a bottle is cracked as the ship leaves it’s slip.  Fret and cascade escape a troubled brow.  A boat builder an architect leans smirks and shifts toward the end of the pier.  The wake presses a ripple across the bay’s cloudy shiloutte.  Mooring lines tighten righting an unballasted keel.  Its crew makes up chalks and moors with figure eights and half hitches.  Take up slack and pull with the boatswains command.
Captain, Executive officer, and first mate critique fit for crew and evolution.  

Pea coats smocked, boots weather sealed with wax, glove, slacks, hat, and pants.  Stores are stacked and awaiting brow and chain gang.  Rations and stores for 4 weeks.  The harbor’s main berthing finds vacancy at the vessels underway taking.  Bow to stern aspect three hundred feet washed and clean.  She has a 9 foot draft with another 22 feet to the first rail.  

The lines in the boat shore for a nimble light sailing ship.  A clipper maybe,  I’ll wait to report further direction possibly assuming more command.  A cigarette falls from my first *******.  A jostle to my left crafts seagulls posturing a stolen meal.  Sulfur stings my nostril igniting the first of two puffs.  The captian rolls his eyes my direction gives the once over finding his intrest in the rest of the evolution.

A few pier hands set eyes on the clipper, smoking.

Mice run along the wooden edge of the pier away from some of the salted pork and grain.  Two other mice lose courage at my sight line.  XO and first mate shift and turn retrieving my concern.  The brow is being landed at the stern of the ship.  

No decals and no name yet.  At some point Ill find or ask to be apart of the ships crew.  Deck hand, cook, messenger, helmsman, assistant to first mate all compatible with ability.  The first mate chuckles and mentions a figurative by stander knowing that an employment opportunity starts with a  conversation.  

Crew’s first leiutenant for the most part looks squared away and a bit untouchable, salty.  Pants tucked into calf high boots, a beard, pea coat and a lost stare.  Hesitating a bit he grins and settles back to appropriate conversation.

My bag and jacket drop accompany to the stores.  Maybe a slow patient walk aft, there has to be a name for her.  At the stern a marching movement to my right and I can follow the rear of the boat and in peripheral the command group.

The Lion’s Winter in large old English print below a iron clad window pane bounces with the tide to the left and right in a roll.  I can see the ship, now calming into a quiet slop off of the pier and its mooring lines. The rudder is a massive distorted key shaped piece of poplar with copper piano hinges all the way to the back of the keel.  A small blue crab lengthens a breast stroke across the top of the water.  

The three follow the appropriate custom before crossing the brow and the first louie barks a few times.  Two of the ship’s crew begin inventory on stores while a bit of nervousness creeps over the contents of my only possessions.  Wetting my lips I can taste the salt on my face.

One of the crew yells,
“Louie, move him off.  He stump’n around the grub.”
He barks again,
“Turn two.  Got more an him eny’d, a Rat!”

I took that as on opportunity to introduction.  Mr. Louie straightened pursed heels and drained thought from my façade.  His eyes narrowed, he felt the calm of my urgency.  He knew I needed, obliged then walked to conversation.  “Cryme's, you look’n for someone.”

“Humm, a shipmate.”
I could see the it was not the conversation he was expecting.  He leveled, “Pretty tight around here. What do you have in the bag?”

“Mostly books.”  

“You cant cross the atlantic reading books.”

Sharply understood in sponse to kurt, “Is that an opportunity or an intrest accompany to nothing.”

“You can naught cross the Atlantic.”


Tim says leave the world.  I laugh and he says no righting, laughter.
The first chapter
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—'
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
It's an epic poem, worth the reading effort
we hang on to that ****** thing

hoping it will bring

us luck

does it?

does it?

the **** it does.




shove it,

don't hang on

don't love it




In these vaults where faults are bound to overwhelm me




the Skipper's all at sea and we are all alone




a helmsman with no land or home to tide him by

a reason only if to

if I want to

want to

die or why it has to be this way?




An Oracle would bid me sit and say.

'why hang on at all

Rome built in a day will fall'




it all takes time.




Time is just a cross to bear

a watch to wear,

a moment

dare we look?

dare we

do we give a **** about that thing?




what thing?




I've moved on away from that thing




that thing never did me good

I thought it would,




at one time

I thought the World was flat




that thing

circumcised my brain




colonised my train of thought




I need a ripcord

a Gordian sword




I found it in the word.
Another ship sinks.

So
drinks to the helmsman who knew only too well
and sailed us all off to end up in this hell.
and the Captain turns to the crew
who were blue with the cold that was coloured by the sea
and with a voice we could not only hear but could see
said,
'drink up your *** boys and don't look so glum boys
your sails will be filled up tonight
with delights from the mermaids who've laid on a party so drink up your *** lads and be hale and hearty
and the devil takes care of his own'
S I N Apr 2020
The squall of soaring seagulls up above,
The creaking of an icy frozen grove,
The numbness all over his limbs,
Surrounded by a desert of the nips
As if a wounded whale upon a shore
Mottled with a spots of ****** gore
A sailor lay, amidst the shipwreck caused
By a helmsman un-afortunately drowsed
And skyward gazing, looking at the sun
To inner self this lament he begun:
“My name is Thomas, Lord, I’m very young,  
I’d speak to you aloud, but I can’t feel my tongue,
But, still, I hope that you will hark;
O God be **** the day when to embark
On this here very ****** ship I decided;
I guess I was too much an absent-minded
But I am young, o Lord, and know not world,
Therefore a chance to th’ opportunity like this to hold
To I had no moral right to disregard,
So in a blink I am aboard a ship dubbed « Scarred »;
We travelled fast, we anchored now and then,
I guess once time we even Devil’s Den
Were very lucky to escape ungrazed,
But otherwise was very last this case;
The moon was up, the sky was clear,
The stars a-strewn dissolving every fear
So very much affected by this sight,
The worthy helmsman gave in to the night;
In every other instance (and they were)
Did nothing never happen, but now lo,
The splinter showed itself to lonely night
And did emerge to that most pallid light;
And just like this he pierced into our hull
Like in a wretched man his horns does sheath a bull;
Commotion set us all awake,
Some people overboard in our wake,
I’m to the deck, the moment next
I lose my conscious, fall from the apex;
When I again do can perceive the life
Every other mate did lose his strife;
And only things around me thereof:
The squall of soaring seagulls up above,
The creaking of an icy frozen grove,
The numbness all over my limbs,
Surrounded by a desert of the nips
As if a wounded whale upon a shore
Mottled with a spots of ****** gore”
With these thoughts swerving in his mind
Of the outer world became he blind;
And thus he perished, left there all alone:
Blind and bruised and Frozen to the bone
Patrick McCombs Feb 2012
The torrential downpour slammed against the ship
The helmsman is losing his grip
The sails are in shambles
The captain has been reduced to rambles
The storm shows no sign of slowing
And that feeling in my stomach is rapidly growing
We are going to sink
Salty water is going to be my last drink
Thor's hammer strikes above
Only pure unadulterated fear
With my death so near
I gaze back into the past
Savoring every memory while it lasts
I look at it sweetly through rose tinted glass
I smile softly to myself as all things must pass
The water grabs me in an ice cold embrace
And I die with grace and a smile on my face
Through death i know what it means to live
All the pleasure and horrors it can give
So don't throw it away
Use and abuse everyday
AJ Mayfield Aug 2014
What may be this stormy brilliance
come upon my weary watch
Oh what fresh'ning wind befall me
on this perilous small yacht

Shall I shelter in calm harbors,
set a course for un-adventure,
reef my sails, take in the main,
keep it safe for my debenture

Or is mine the priceless treasure
on some island beach I'll find,
if I rig my weather mainsail,
and prepare my boat for rime

Set the genoa to run out,
shift my rudder to the force,
let the weather take a free turn,
let the helmsman plot the course

So be still my racing heartbeat,
be thee calm my apprehension,
give me over to these winds that blow,
it could only cost pretension
Chapter X
Etréstles appears from Lepanto

From Lepanto; Greece. He appeared exhausted with his eyes reddened by the gassed atmosphere that greeted them in Battle. Of whose intraterrestrial castes it was the one that was in his iron spirit and floated in his cape as a gesture of his personality. He arrived cracking the ****** soils of Tel Gómel, when he arrived ... he was assaulted by a soldier who asked for mercy to extend his bad fortune.

Falangist: With his helmet in his hands and the Dorus on his cloak on the ground tells him; every single thing I tried the double edge of my sword stained him. The top sheet notified me that my family in Kalidona was in a state of irregularity, since my two older children were called to serve in the militias. And the second edge of my lower Dorus I bow to the meanest preciousness of that of observing with a good spirit to cooperate, now with the callousness of my soul that overcomes it exploiting and dragging my wife as easy spoil. I know that my descendants were buried under the effect of the cataclysm of Pompeii in the future. All will emigrate and then flee when they are devastated and the unwelcome comrades return to reintegrate into the Santa Mary festival. The patron saint who consoled me, but I prepare myself for the resistance of such bad fortune, that one day I would drop with my crops in the culture of peasant angels in fruits and devotions. I sobbed and sobbed rubbing my animals through my empty eyes day and night. They did it next to me, with the singularity of not affecting me, they went to the nearest stream to sob for me so that I would not be affected by the fatal annihilation.

Etréstles, moved by the tribulations of the Infant of the Phalanx, fell to the ground imposing nonexistence, after his words implored Hera for her benevolence to sponsor him as a parasite and reside with her. Thus they would be immune to progressive lives under the influence of the primary and secondary sharp edges of the Phalanx weapons. Hera's eyes sparkled as the Phalangist's soul entered the Goddess. They were not vanities, but for the advent of his vanity on the Acropolis thus reaching him.

Etréstles reacts and says to the Falangist: You will be able to leave earlier, my horse Kanti stretched him out of one of his legs by neighing in proportion, so from the suffix of Hera he took the comparative stelae of a hunter and manifested to the hunter; You are already a Phalangist, ride your steed, Sail to your lands in search of your wife and children and feel magnanimous, before the phalanx officer's frivolous arrogant whistle makes you feel unconsciously smaller.

Etréstles says goodbye and tells the Phalangist to get ready for the logistical combat letter promptly. After all the event, you will be reported back by Hera's command to your lands, to release the grasses by the vertical odes of the belly of the wet, presiding zephyr, and the germination of the warm aromas of your holy land in Kalidona next to your ***** family.

Etréstles de Kalavrita, cheers on the head, both temples and lavishly kisses the Tupe between Kanti's ears. The hyper beautiful sorrel eliminated sinuous vehemence gleaming through its nostrils, it jumped down the cliffs and ravines. They arrive in a rush to Tel Gomel, and appear before Alexander III the Great and Vernarth of the Reign of Sudpichi. They were fiddling with paragraphs of the strategy before meeting with the fifteenth commanders to review the Falangists, and outline a logistics letter.

Adhesion of love Cattle says: "Think of me, ...", stemming from the indefinite discomfort and outbursts of the undecided. The archaic traditions are only for kingdoms to conquer, to sleep like a peaceful dream that sleeps together with us. Do you know how many wars I have had to endure not seeing any gesture of the undaunted muscles of everyone's face and the Whole ..., if they knew?
Replica of Lost love adhesion: from hidden science I will unravel and unravel all my trades to recover what is lost. The magic was lost between my fingers due to its excessive impetuousness, for handling alchemical essences. After this had happened, any mirage or outburst of immortality vanished from all the cardinal points. In the city of Naupacto or Lepanto, it formerly had the best port on the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, whose entrance it dominated. The origin of its name is due to the fact that a heracid had obtained a fleet in this place before crossing the Peloponnese, or because it had been a place used to build ships, so Naupacto would have originated from naûs (ship) and pēgnymi (build). “City of Ships, from where Etréstles de Kalavrita came from the aggressive comparisons of the masked love lost and won. Palafrén, that mounts the destinations of the city with his eternal beloved Drestnia.

During the War of the Satagenisis and Deidagenesis, along with the Heosphoros and the Man of Valplacci with their heart Infarcted they continued to prostrate Lucifer., They refluxed with the wars of the Peloponnese, which was the headquarters of the Athenian fleet in western Greece. The Athenian fleet, led by Admiral Phormio, defeated the Lacedaemonians at Naupacto (Koumeterium Messolonghi, Ch. 45 - Palibrio USA).

From here the austere visions of the Charioteer, the genitals of the animal kingdom, and of the exiled human species, flew over all roofs. With his lasciviousness ambushing the females with his ******* pretension, he started towards his senses in his servitude.
When they approached the province of Nafpaktia, the Nome of Aitoloakarnania, the weightless musks that spread and crushed souls, who do not die with breathlessness or halite that extinguishes it submissive. This is how it could provoke some heartbreak and take it to the underworld of Hades. The castes of gods and semi-gods will free him from his chains and the furious Xenon and Lithium gases. Gasifications that will sneak down the drains spaces where no sword my spear will cross the atmosphere of Gaugamela. Only Vernarth out there has to be channeled through the unscathed pavilions of the immaculate back room of his heroic stock. Without any undulating or blatant blade cutting his sanctified and pure muscles acquired in the aforementioned sessions in the Bumodos with the drugs and potions of Medea.

Ellipsis in the Castle of Horcondising:
His mother Luccica were looking out the stained glass window of his main windowed pavilion. Through her she saw how her sons Vernarth and Etréstles met with the great General, to unravel the mysteries of the immaculate and intact pavilions of Vernarth where she commanded and nothing caused her any injury, neither by the edge of manipulated steel points nor by all the hands wrestling with a transfigured fate change.

Luccica says: Dear shoots. The last night of Solstice I couldn't sleep well. The forest of forests woke me up and I couldn't count its fallen leaves. What obedience to my expatriate will, to liquidate them I would gain strength to the intruder fatigue? I know that when I close my eyes I will dream of you. Hold on to the carnival close to the movements that are indescribable but visible. I look at the acacia trees that do not cause injuries to my night eyes, but they cut the necks of themselves like a sieve to admire them in the pantheon of Morpheus.

I will not move my arms to unsettle any vibrations that hinder my fusion with you, except on the vehicles that oscillate from the War to Peace. I move my feeling through my own numb hand of the uncertain living shadow of Luccica, your mother more than yours, forever presence of the dominance of the absence of my desires. All the others who are undaunted, I will mislead them from my national indulgences, which dispossess my ignoble body by weaving and embroidering here in the linen fibers. Evil beyond the stained glass window I saw abstracted, as the swords and spears misguided wielded each other, as if wanting to slice the air to pierce the curtain that divides reality with sub reality. Prisoners of a post-battle that would come to reopen the curtains on the sub reality of the fleeting children of Luccica, of the naive and dying curtains not yet stained with urgent blood in the unpoured vessels.

Son Etréstles Madalena arrived today from Florence; she arrived tired and very sleepy. I think he will sleep until you come back waiting for you! Arrival with some sisters sent by their mother Catarina de Pazzi, directly from the Chiesa di San Giovannino dei Cavalieri. Here long hours she told us without warning the news of her adventure until we reached Sudpichi to the Reign of Horcondising. Undoubtedly I passed the Apennines before crossing the gory viaduct, it has brought you an immolated Cross from right there. Then from Genoa I sail the seas to Valparaíso, brought directly by the merchant ship that came from Helmsman Strigoi, Vlad Tepes himself. On the surface, the float arrived without interruption or ceaselessly, as it had to be appreciated and done in the vicinity of the Mandragora, before arriving at the horcondising.

For you Vernarth, I know that you enjoy the company of Walekiria, who has surrounded you with the divine verb. That of the yellow grasses that walk along the yellow paths, none will be more path than herself. I will be with you very closely, as well as I will see it and you will revive in Gaugamela.

Hades says: with a human conscience I would like to alleviate the weight that breaks the bottom of the ships that invade foreign lands. But my origin sentences the soft abandonment of the labyrinths of thought and reason. For this I leave my punishments to the one who here with reason let his ideological tendency inhale perpetuate itself in Gaugamela without being supervised by my fury, overshadowing my administration of those who should not live or die in the ancient song, who sleep and sleep, but who my Dark prayer does not distract you.

To be continued / under editing
VERNARTH  X  ETRESTLES FROM LEPANTO
Joe Cole Jul 2015
For four days now we've run before the bitter storm
Timbers cracked and broken, sails rent and torn

Hold fast boys, hold fast for a mighty wave is bearing down
And if you're swept across the rail then you must surely drown

I should try to wear the ship, get her head into the wind
But if I do my bonny lads we might end up twenty fathoms down

Helmsman stand here close by me, I'll lash you to the wheel
I can't afford to lose you lad for I need your arms of steel

Lads I'll do my best to bring you safely home
But we stand into terrible danger and yet may come to harm

My crew are tired, weary, lashed by wind and rain
They bravely fight the raging storm, bearing all their pain

Then comes a mighty shout. "See there a patch of blue"
Storm clouds like curtains opened and the sun came into view

Gather round me now my lads and give thanks to him above
For through your strength and through his guidance I can return you to those you love
I enjoyed writing this one and still get a great deal of pleasure every time I read it
Joe Cole May 2014
For four  days now we've run before the bitter raging storm
timbers cracked and broken,  sails  rent and torn

Hold fast my boys hold fast for a mighty wave is bearing down
and if your swept across the rail you will surely drown

I should try to wear the ship, get her head into the wind but if
I do my bonny lads we might end up twenty fathoms down

Helmsman stand here close by me, I will lash you to the wheel,
I can't afford to lose you lad for I need your arms of steel

Lads  I will do my best to bring you safely home but we stand
into terrible danger and still yet may come to harm

My crew are tired,  weary, lashed by wind and rain, but still
they bravely fight the raging storm bearing all their pain

Then comes a mighty shout,  see there a patch of blue,  the storm
clouds liks curtains open and the sun comes into view

Gather round me now my lads and give thanks to him above for
through your courage and his guidance I can return you to
those you love.
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/29/2019

Even if your ship would be caught in the greatest of storms,
you'll stay in charge unafraid being the helmsman for your crew,
like a good father caring for his children, you shall not let them die.

If you fall - you will not swear,
because your fellowmen will lift you up,
for your heart for everyone and everywhere.

Remember - money is the king of the world,
and friends? - they'll find you in need,
but the small flame of a poor-quality candle
always quickly goes out.

For your birthday some will bring you roses,
have you seen this flower without thorns?
while others - dasies from an oak wood,
adorned with the most innocent dew.

You'll have to choose - love or affection,
and given moment you'd better not confuse
that sometimes it's worth to think about that
what in its essence a flower shall remain.

Wieslaw Musialowski 5/10/2003
Abeer Aug 2023
Oh keep the run, for darkness lies seldom still
From the lighthouse to the mighty river's chill

Now comes a man on trial, and he must
He asks what's more worth, the truth or cost
Argues the meaning of justice
Our dying purpose as truth seekers and our bitter warmongering
Then clevage of the world disheartened for
A brief second, then we killed him

Oh keep the run, for darkness lies seldom still
From dark dungeons to a free bird's shrill

Now comes a mother, feeling her womb
She must ask what will the men do
If it were a baby girl, or someone unlike true
But she's got no time, for she needs food
Working tirelessly for her babe to fly
When everything is about to die

Oh keep the run, for darkness lies seldom still
From cold murderers to friends in good will

Now comes a weary traveller, in foreign land
With his missing heart on left and harp in hand
He comes to the river beside the helmsman
And asks if he can cross if he is not dead
The helmsman said no, it is only for the dead
The traveller said why would he be there
if he didn't wish it
Aren't we all lost to the perfect place?

Oh keep the run, for darkness lies seldom quiet
For it waits until all comes back at night
Ken Mears Nov 2019
Death rides at midnight

Filling the land with blight

He casts a frightful image

As he rides through the village


His frightful scythe gleams

Wet with the blood of unrealized dreams

The cold, hard metal

Is uncaring enough to unsettle


Beneath his dark hood

Lies nothing good

Only the husk of a man

Who signals the end of a lifespan


His skeletal horse

He rides along his dutiful course

Whinnying as he stops

To **** the farmer's crops


Solemn is his duty

To take away life's beauty

Unbearable to a living man

The underworld's ghastly helmsman


The pistol is his herald

In his black cloak appareled

Weapons of war

Bring him to the door


His job is made no easier

Nor and breezier

By mankinds love of violence

Or vile fraudulence


All the thousands of young souls

Lives lost without completing their goals

Brought to a swift end

By Death only to attend


Death rides at midnight

Filling the land with blight

He casts a frightful image

As he rides through the village

Searching for souls to pillage
Henry Feb 2019
Putrid scent of rotting elm
A hollow vessel, none at helm

Floating, Drifting, Swaying yet
A smoke-filled room, a shallow bet

What more than logs can human be
With not a helmsman in his sea?

For what’s a ship without its crew
But dying wood and foamy slew?
Damo Nov 3
I've come to peace with darkness,
An eternal embrace, my only wish,
With the end drawing near, I long to talk
To the bringer of death, her whispers soft.

Her warm embrace: What I've always sought,
In the shape of white circles, small and cold,
I take a breath, deep and slow,
Before burning liquid flushes my final wish down my throat.

Now I wait for her to draw near,
To feel her presence, to silence my cries.
But as she lingers, my heart starts to race,
A longing for her eternal embrace.

Why this anxiety? Shouldn’t I feel warm and calm?
She stands at my door, her arms open wide,
But something inside me holds onto the last spark of life,
The flicker of hope that won't let me be taken.

It's not too late: I grasp for the phone,
A plea for another chance.
In shadows, I tremble, the impatient helmsman waiting to cross the Styx.

So I’ll call for help, let the sirens wail,
A soft voice answers the call,
I can't respond,
My wish has taken hold of me and won't let go,
My eyes close shut as darkness is all that remains,
A slight echo of that soft voice is heard in the distance,
But halfway the river Styx,
The soft voice is drowned out by the lost souls seeking peace,
Whom I am soon to join.
Would highly appreciate criticism and I would love to hear what you felt while reading this.
Hakikur Rahman Mar 2021
The helmsman, the cultivator of the village
Come everybody come
Go to the quay, go to the field
Time flies.

You have to raise the sail
We have to join helm to the plow
River water is surging
Waves playing in the paddy field.

Flood is in the river today
Harvest Binny rice for the next season
There is no time to sit idle
Get up by fastening the waist.
Binny is a special type of rice that is used to make
roasted rice in greater Bengal
poetryaccident Aug 2017
When the fun has run its course
I’ve plumbed the depths, come up short
seeking more than I should have
in the realms where I’ve played

appetite was front and center
once appeased, but no longer
craving lust more than reason
hunger as its own reward

autopilot for the sinner
helmsman of the darkness realms
pointing to the paths unwinding
beyond the realm of angels’ sight

promising all and nothing more
the cup is hidden from the drinker
was it empty before I sipped
or did I drain the decadence?

the passenger sits in the back
they are me with inclination
to explore where passion ends
the greatest trap of the seeker

now I’ve returned to the start
more desirous than before
taken there with no regrets
except to depart, to roam again.

© 2017. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20170824.
“To Roam Again” began with the first two lines imagined in the early morning.

— The End —