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55 Covering many a rood of ground,

Lay the timber piled around;

Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak,
And scattered here and there, with these,
The knarred and crooked cedar knees;
60 Brought from regions far away,
From Pascagoula's sunny bay,

And the banks of the roaring Roanoke!
Ah! what a wondrous thing it is

To note how many wheels of toil

65 One thought, one word, can set in motion!
There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,

Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!

70 The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be

Of some great, airy argosy,

69. The wooden wall is of course the ship. The reference is to a proverbial expression of very ancient date. When the Greeks sent to Delphi to ask how they were to defend themselves against Xerxes, who had invaded their country, the oracle replied:

"Pallas hath urged, and Zeus the sire of all
Hath safety promised in a wooden wall;
Seed-time and harvest, weeping sires shall tell
How thousands fought at Salamis and fell."

The Greeks interpreted this as a caution to trust in their navy, and the battle at Salamis resulted in the overthrow of the Persian and discomfiture of their fleet.

73. A richly freighted ship. The word is formed from Argo, the name of the fabled ship which brought back the golden fleece from Colchis. Shakspere uses the word: as in the The Taming of the Shrew:

"That she shall have; besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles' road."

Act II. Scene 1

Framed and launched in a single day. 75 That silent architect, the sun,

Had hewn and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth, against an anchor leaning,
80 Listened, to catch his slightest meaning.
Only the long waves, as they broke
In ripples on the pebbly beach,
Interrupted the old man's speech.

Beautiful they were, in sooth,
85 The old man and the fiery youth!
The old man, in whose busy brain
Many a ship that sailed the main
Was modelled o'er and o'er again;

The fiery youth, who was to be

90 The heir of his dexterity,

The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand,
When he had built and launched from land
What the elder head had planned.

And in The Merchant of Venice : —

"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; 1 understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England." Act I. Scene 3.

87. The main is the great ocean as distinguished from the bays, gulfs, and inlets. Curiously enough, it means also the main-land, and was used in both senses by Elizabethan writers. In King Lear, Act III. Scene 1:

"Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,

Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main "

some commentators take main to be the main-land, but a better sense seems to refer it to the open sea when a storm is raging. Yet the name of Spanish Main was given to the northern coast of South America when that country was taken possession of by

"Thus," said he, "will we build this ship!
95 Lay square the blocks upon the slip,

And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound beware;

For only what is sound and strong

100 To this vessel shall belong.

Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Here together shall combine.

A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,
And the UNION be her name!

105 For the day that gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee!"

The Master's word

Enraptured the young man heard;
And as he turned his face aside,

110 With a look of joy and a thrill of pride.
Standing before

Her father's door,

He saw the form of his promised bride.
The sun shone on her golden hair,

115 And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair, With the breath of morn and the soft sea air. Like a beauteous barge was she,

Still at rest on the sandy beach,

95. The slip is the inclined bank on which the ship is built. A similar meaning attaches to the use of the word locally in New York, where Peck Slip, Coenties Slip, Burling Slip, originally denoted the inclined openings between wharves.

104. Here, as was noted in Schiller's Song of the Bell, the poet touches the ship with a special human interest and by his reference to Maine cedar, and Georgia pine, half reveals the larger and wider sense of the building of the ship, which is disclosed at the end of the poem.

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