I.
The joys of the ocean let others discuss,
A ship is to me a marine omnibus,
Or an ark where man, beast, bird, and insect convene,
And each living creature on board is unclean.
II.
Should slumber miraculous seal up your eyes,
No chanticleer issues a summons to rise,
You’ve the music of hounds, and should that fail to vex,
It gives place to the sound of men swobbing the decks.
III.
In the stillness of night some fond fancies invade,
Perchance you may dream that some fair, favour’d maid
With delicate fingers is twining your hair,
And you wake to find cockroaches, not fingers, there.
IV.
’Tis a Babel of sounds; you’ve the lowing of cows,
Sheep bleating, and squeaks of parturient sows,
Geese cackling, ducks quacking, curs yelping, ne’er mute,
And the wheeze of some plaintive, asthmatical flute.
V.
Around you what various odours arise!
How blest is the man to whom nature denies
The olfactory nerve, to whose nonchalant nose
The stalest bilgewater is fragrant as rose!
VI.
To dine in the cuddy tames pleasures of sense,
Proves life but a lottery; its prizes pretence,
Its blanks dark realities, there ’twill be seen
’Twixt the cup and the lip what sad slips intervene.
VII.
You drink to a fair one: how blest her escape,
Whose bosom’s not red with the juice of the grape;
Each flagon may Tantalus serve for a stoup,
And envious Neptune upsets your pea-soup.
VIII.
What pleasure to walk with a staggering gait,
With dimness of sight, and confusion of pate;
Like a drunkard to reel when the ship gives a lurch,
And balance see-saw, like a duck forced to perch!
IX.
The city of palaces bursts on my sight!
Its mosques and its temples I hail with delight;
A palace in every building I see,
For a pigsty ashore is a palace to me.
THE END.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS