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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=366009" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Three Ships...</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sebastian Cabot returned from Spain, <br>To delight in England's shores, <br>He needed a route to old Cathay<br>To trade his wool for furs, <br>The Straits were held by the Spanish Dons<br>The Cape by the Portuguese, <br>Between them, strangling English trade, <br>He championed English needs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So he formed the Merchant Adventurers, <br>To seek out a north-east route, <br>Each man hand-picked for his diligence<br>And conformity, to suit; <br>They had to be 'knit in unitie, <br>Obedience in everie degree', <br>So that no dissent would afflict them when<br>At mercy of tides and sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He chose three sturdy sailing ships<br>To seek the fabled course, <br>That would take them over the top of the world<br>Where man hadn't been before, <br>The Bona Confidentia <br>Was a ship of ninety tons, <br>Carrying victuals to serve the crews<br>For a voyage of fifteen months.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Edward Bonaventura carried<br>The pilot of the fleet, <br>The seadog, Richard Chancellor, <br>A seaman, most complete.<br>But then, the Bona Speranza carried<br>The leader of the three, <br>A soldier with no ocean skills, <br>Sir Hugh - Hugh Willoughby.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They sailed at last by Greenwich there, <br>By Good King Hen-ery, <br>He bid them well, and weather fair<br>As they headed toward the sea, <br>But the winds blew up, and the seas were rough<br>And they sheltered for forty days, <br>Along the English coastline that<br>Was hidden in mist and haze.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They sailed past Scandinavia<br>Toward the Lapland coast, <br>So close that they could hail each other<br>To save one being lost, <br>But by the Lofotan Islands there<br>The wind it howled, forlorn, <br>And Willoughby failed to trim his sails, <br>So ran before the storm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The other two fell far behind <br>Lost to each other's sight, <br>The seas hurled furious waves to<br>Batter the ships all through the night, <br>But when the storm had spent its force<br>And the sun rose, grey at the dawn, <br>Willoughby found the victuals ship<br>But Chancellor had gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The two remaining ships stayed close, <br>They crossed the Barents Sea, <br>They reached Novaya Zemlya then<br>Turned back, in misery, <br>The ice was just beginning to form<br>On yard and deck, and sail, <br>They headed back to find Murmansk<br>But ice lay on the rail.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By the cold Arzina River mouth<br>The ships were locked in the ice, <br>With never a human soul to see<br>In a million miles of white, <br>The seamen hung on the frosted rail<br>And searched while their eyes could see, <br>Then went below as the cold and snow<br>Closed in on their purgatory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Willoughby sat at his cabin desk<br>And wrote in his diary, <br>'The land lay not as the globe was made, <br>I should never have put to sea.<br>The world up here is like frozen glass<br>And it streams from the yards and sails, <br>'Til the ship turns white, and disappears, <br>Into the landscape pales.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For months they fed on the victuals there, <br>Burnt sea-coal to warm their bones, <br>The sailors fell in a stupor, lay<br>In their bunks, or thought of home, <br>But the ice, it cracked, and the ship, it creaked<br>As the pressure built up outside, <br>And many a man was crazed, and ran<br>In search of the countryside.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so they died there, one by one, <br>From fear, from cold, alas; <br>While Willoughby sat at his desk so still, <br>His diary frozen like glass, <br>It lay on the table, its final remark<br>Was to puzzle men, three years on, <br>With the ships of frozen statues found<br>Where they'd dropped and died, to a man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The entry stood out stark and bare<br>With his frozen pen at his side, <br>As if he'd been trying to tell the world<br>How the last of his seamen died, <br>'There were strange beastes, to us unknowen, <br>And wonderful to be seen, <br>Prowled round the ship in the midnite gloome, <br>Dear God - I have locked me in! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">2 November 2008</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=366009" data-title="Three Ships... de David Lewis Paget" data-description="Sebastian Cabot returned from Spain, 
To delight in England's shores, 
He needed a route to old Cathay
To trade his wool for furs, 
The Straits were held by the Spanish Dons
The Cape by the Portuguese, 
Between them, strangling English trade, 
He ..."></div>
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