THE THREE-DECKER. "The three-volume novel is extinct." FULL thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. Fair held our breeze behind us-'twas warm with lovers' prayers: We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs; They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. Carambas and serapés we waved to every wind, We smoked good Corpo Bacco when our sweethearts proved unkind; With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed We also took our manners to the Islands of the Blest. We asked no social questions-we pumped no hidden shame We never talked obstetrics when the little stranger came: We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. We weren't exactly Yussufs, but-Zuleika didn't tell! No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, The villain got his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. 'Twas fiddles in the foc'sle-'twas garlands on the mast, For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. I left 'em all in couples akissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing checks. In endless English comfort by county-folk ca ressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift again Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. They're just beyond the skyline, howe'er so far you cruise In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. Swing round your aching search-light-'twill show no haven's peace! Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, graybearded seas! Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest But you aren't a knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest. And when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, On a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head; While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine. Hull down-hull down and under-she dwindles to a speck, With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. All's well-all's well aboard her-she's dropped you far behind, With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind. |