Three Ships...
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 championed English needs.
So he formed the Merchant Adventurers,
To seek out a north-east route,
Each man hand-picked for his diligence
And conformity, to suit;
They had to be 'knit in unitie,
Obedience in everie degree',
So that no dissent would afflict them when
At mercy of tides and sea.
He chose three sturdy sailing ships
To seek the fabled course,
That would take them over the top of the world
Where man hadn't been before,
The Bona Confidentia
Was a ship of ninety tons,
Carrying victuals to serve the crews
For a voyage of fifteen months.
The Edward Bonaventura carried
The pilot of the fleet,
The seadog, Richard Chancellor,
A seaman, most complete.
But then, the Bona Speranza carried
The leader of the three,
A soldier with no ocean skills,
Sir Hugh - Hugh Willoughby.
They sailed at last by Greenwich there,
By Good King Hen-ery,
He bid them well, and weather fair
As they headed toward the sea,
But the winds blew up, and the seas were rough
And they sheltered for forty days,
Along the English coastline that
Was hidden in mist and haze.
They sailed past Scandinavia
Toward the Lapland coast,
So close that they could hail each other
To save one being lost,
But by the Lofotan Islands there
The wind it howled, forlorn,
And Willoughby failed to trim his sails,
So ran before the storm.
The other two fell far behind
Lost to each other's sight,
The seas hurled furious waves to
Batter the ships all through the night,
But when the storm had spent its force
And the sun rose, grey at the dawn,
Willoughby found the victuals ship
But Chancellor had gone.
The two remaining ships stayed close,
They crossed the Barents Sea,
They reached Novaya Zemlya then
Turned back, in misery,
The ice was just beginning to form
On yard and deck, and sail,
They headed back to find Murmansk
But ice lay on the rail.
By the cold Arzina River mouth
The ships were locked in the ice,
With never a human soul to see
In a million miles of white,
The seamen hung on the frosted rail
And searched while their eyes could see,
Then went below as the cold and snow
Closed in on their purgatory.
Willoughby sat at his cabin desk
And wrote in his diary,
'The land lay not as the globe was made,
I should never have put to sea.
The world up here is like frozen glass
And it streams from the yards and sails,
'Til the ship turns white, and disappears,
Into the landscape pales.
For months they fed on the victuals there,
Burnt sea-coal to warm their bones,
The sailors fell in a stupor, lay
In their bunks, or thought of home,
But the ice, it cracked, and the ship, it creaked
As the pressure built up outside,
And many a man was crazed, and ran
In search of the countryside.
And so they died there, one by one,
From fear, from cold, alas;
While Willoughby sat at his desk so still,
His diary frozen like glass,
It lay on the table, its final remark
Was to puzzle men, three years on,
With the ships of frozen statues found
Where they'd dropped and died, to a man.
The entry stood out stark and bare
With his frozen pen at his side,
As if he'd been trying to tell the world
How the last of his seamen died,
'There were strange beastes, to us unknowen,
And wonderful to be seen,
Prowled round the ship in the midnite gloome,
Dear God - I have locked me in! '
2 November 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Ships
If all the ships I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
From sunny lands, and lands of cold,
Ah well! the harbor could not hold
So many sails as there would be
If all my ships came in from sea.
If half my ships came home from sea,
And brought their precious freight to me,
Ah, well! I should have wealth as great
As any king who sits in state,
So rich the treasures that would be
In half my ships now at sea.
If just one ship I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! the storm clouds then might frown,
For if the others all went down
Still rich and proud and glad I’d be,
If that one ship came back to me.
If that one ship were down at sea,
And all the others came to me,
Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,
With glory, honor, riches, gold,
The poorest soul on earth I’d be
If that one ship came not to me.
O skies be calm! O winds blow free--
Blow all my ships safe home to me.
But if thou sendest some awrack
To never more come sailing back,
Send any--all that skim the sea--
But bring my love-ship home to me.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Last of the Narwhale
THE STORY OF AN ARCTIC NIP.
AY, ay, I'll tell you, shipmates,
If you care to hear the tale,
How myself and the royal yard alone
Were left of the old Narwhale.
'A stouter ship was never launched
Of all the Clyde-built whalers;
And forty years of a life at sea
Haven't matched her crowd of sailors.
Picked men they were, all young and strong,
And used to the wildest seas,
From Donegal and the Scottish coast,
And the rugged Hebrides.
Such men as women cling to, mates,
Like ivy round their lives:
And the day we sailed, the quays were lined
With weeping mothers and wives.
They cried and prayed, and we gave 'em a cheer,
In the thoughtless way of men;
God help them, shipmates—thirty years
They've waited and prayed since then.
'We sailed to the North, and I mind it well,
The pity we felt, and pride
When we sighted the cliffs of Labrador
From the sea where Hudson died.
We talked of ships that never came back,
And when the great floes passed,
Like ghosts in the night, each moonlit peak
Like a great war frigate's mast,
'Twas said that a ship was frozen up
In the iceberg's awful breast,
The clear ice holding the sailor's face
As he lay in his mortal rest.
And I've thought since then, when the ships came home
That sailed for the Franklin band,
A mistake was made in the reckoning
That looked for the crews on land.
'They're floating still,' I've said to myself,
'And Sir John has found the goal;
The Erebus and the Terror, mates,
Are icebergs up at the Pole!'
'We sailed due North, to Baffin's Bay,
And cruised through weeks of light;
'Twas always day, and we slept by the bell,
And longed for the dear old night,
And the blessed darkness left behind,
Like a curtain round the bed;
But a month dragged on like an afternoon
With the wheeling sun o'erhead.
We found the whales were farther still,
The farther north we sailed;
Along the Greenland glacier coast,
The boldest might have quailed,
Such shapes did keep us company;
No sail in all that sea,
But thick as ships in Mersey's tide
The bergs moved awfully
Within the current's northward stream;
But, ere the long day' s close,
We found the whales and filled the ship
Amid the friendly floes.
'Then came a rest: the day was blown
Like a cloud before the night;
In the South the sun went redly down —
In the North rose another light,
Neither sun nor moon, but a shooting dawn,
That silvered our lonely way;
It seemed we sailed in a belt of gloom,
Upon either side, a day.
The north wind smote the sea to death;
The pack-ice closed us round —
The Narwhale stood in the level fields
As fast as a ship aground.
A weary time it was to wait,
And to wish for spring to come,
With the pleasant breeze and the blessed sun,
To open the way toward home.
'Spring came at last, the ice-fields groaned
Like living things in pain;
They moaned and swayed, then rent amain,
And the Narwhale sailed again.
With joy the dripping sails were loosed
And round the vessel swung;
To cheer the crew, full south she drew,
The shattered floes among.
We had no books in those old days
To carry the friendly faces;
But I think the wives and lasses then
Were held in better places.
The face of sweetheart and wife to-day
Is locked in the sailor's chest:
But aloft on the yard, with the thought of home,
The face in the heart was best.
Well, well—God knows, mates, when and where
To take the things he gave;
We steered for home—but the chart was his,
And the port ahead—the grave!
'We cleared the floes: through an open sea
The Narwhale south'ard sailed,
Till a day came round when the white fog rose,
And the wind astern had failed.
In front of the Greenland glacier line,
And close to its base were we;
Through the misty pall we could see the wall
That beetled above the sea.
A fear like the fog crept over our hearts
As we heard the hollow roar
Of the deep sea thrashing the cliffs of ice
For leagues along the shore.
'The years have come and the years have gone,
But it never wears away—
The sense I have of the sights and sounds
That marked that woeful day.
Flung here and there at the ocean's will,
As it flung the broken floe—
What strength had we 'gainst the tiger sea
That sports with a sailor's woe?
The lifeless berg and the lifeful ship
Were the same to the sullen wave,
As it swept them far from ridge to ridge,
Till at last the Narwhale drave
With a crashing rail on the glacier wall—
As sheer as the vessel's mast—
A crashing rail and a shivered yard;
But the worst, we thought, was past.
The brave lads sprang to the fending work,
And the skipper's voice rang hard:
'Aloft there, one with a ready knife—
Cut loose that royal yard!'
I sprang to the rigging, young I was,
And proud to be first to dare:
The yard swung free, and I turned to gaze
Toward the open sea, o'er the field of haze,
And my heart grew cold, as if frozen through,
At the moving shape that met my view—
O Christ! what a sight was there!
'Above the fog, as I hugged the yard,
I saw that an iceberg lay—
A berg like a mountain, closing fast—
Not a cable's length away!
I could not see through the sheet of mist
That covered all below,
But I heard the cheery voices still,
And I screamed to let them know.
The cry went down, and the skipper hailed,
But before the word could come
It died in his throat—and I knew they saw
The shape of the closing doom!
'No sound but that—but the hail that died
Came up through the mist to me;
Thank God, it covered the ship like a veil,
And I was not forced to see—
But I heard it, mates: O, I heard the rush,
And the timbers rend and rive,
As the yard I clung to swayed and fell:— I lay on the ice, alive!
Alive! O God of mercy! ship and crew and sea were gone!
The hummocked ice and the broken yard,
And a kneeling man—alone!
'A kneeling man on a frozen hill,
The sounds of life in the air—
All death and ice—and a minute before
The sea and the ship were there!
I could not think they were dead and gone,
And I listened for sound or word:
But the deep sea roar on the desolate shore
Was the only sound I heard.
O mates, I had no heart to thank
The Lord for the life He gave;
I spread my arms on the ice and cried
Aloud on my shipmates' grave.
The brave strong lads, with their strength all vain,
I called them name by name;
And it seemed to me from the dying hearts
A message upward came—
Ay, mates, a message, up through the ice
From every sailor's breast:
'Go tell our mothers and wives at home
To pray for us here at rest.'
'Yes, that's what it means; 'tis a little word;
But, mates, the strongest ship
That ever was built is a baby's toy
When it copes with an Arctic Nip.'
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Wooden Ships
Their sails fluttered in the prevailing winds
as the wooden ships sailed into the horizons
looking for new lands to conquer.
Across oceans with waters unknown
in days when some thought
the world was flat
and if you sailed so far out
you just simply fell off.
The sailors were superstitious
seeing monsters in most living things.
A giant squid became a Kraken
and a myth of ocean lore.
However, these sailors were brave men
and against dangers unknown sailed
to chart new lands
many thought did not exist.
Some went for riches;
others went on a voyage of discovery.
Some came back to tell tall tales.
While other went down in their wooden ships
as in perilous waters sailed,
and slowly the world was discovered
by these sailors in wooden ships.
11 July 2008
poem by David Harris
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Sailing Ships
(coverdale/vandenberg)
Do you remember
Standing on the shore,
Head in the clouds,
Your pockets filled with dreams
Bound for glory
On the seven seas of life,
But, the ocean is deeper than it seems
The wind was with you
When you left on the morning tide,
You set your sail for an island in the sun,
On the horizon, dark clouds up ahead,
For the storm has just begun
Take me with you,
Take me far away,
Lead me to the distant shore
Sail your ship across the water,
Spread your wings across the sky
Take the time to see
Youre the one who holds the key,
Or sailing ships will pass you by
You cry for mercy,
When you think youve lost your way,
You drift alone, if all your hope is gone
So find the strength and you will see
You control, your destiny,
After all is said and done
So take me with you,
Take me far away,
An lead me to the distant shore
Sail your ship across the water,
Spread your wings across the sky
Take the time to see
Youre the one who holds the key,
Or sailing ships will pass,
Sailing ships will pass you,
Sailing ships will pass you by...
Take me with you,
Take me far away,
Well ride the wind across the sky
Spread your wings and you will see
You control, your destiny,
So sailing ships dont pass you by
So take me with you,
Take me far away,
Well ride the wind across the sky
Spread your wings and you will see
You control, your destiny,
So sailing ships dont pass,
So sailing ships dont pass you,
So sailing ships dont pass you by...
Baby, baby, baby, baby,
Youll find that youre the only one
Can sail your ship across the sky
song performed by by Whitesnake
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Revenge - A Ballad of the Fleet
I
AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”
II
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I’ve ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.”
III
So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below:
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
IV
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
“Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There’ll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.”
And Sir Richard said again: “We be all good Englishmen.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”
V
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh’d, and we roar’d a hurrah and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro’ the long sea-lane between.
VI
Thousands of their soldiers look’d down from their decks and laugh’d,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay’d
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d.
VII
And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud, 45
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day.
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
VIII
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went,
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.
IX
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shatter’d and so could fight us no more—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
X
For he said, “Fight on! fight on!”
Tho’ his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone, With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said, “Fight on! fight on!”
XI
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear’d that we still could sting,
So they watch’d what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim’d for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent; 80
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:
“We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!”
XII
And the gunner said, “Ay, ay,” but the seamen made reply:
“We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow.”
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
XIII
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
“I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!”
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
XIV
And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honor down into the deep.
And they mann’d the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail’d with her loss and long’d for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Knowledge
THEY were islanders, our fathers were,
And they watched the encircling seas,
And their hearts drank in the ceaseless stir,
And the freedom of the breeze;
Till they chafed at their narrow bounds
5
And longed for the sweep of the main,
And they fretted and fumed like hounds
Held in within sight of the plain,
And the play
And the prey.
10
So they built them ships of wood, and sailed
To many an unknown coast;
They braved the storm and battles hailed,
And danger they loved most;
Till the tiny ships of wood
15
Grew powerful on the globe
And the new-found lands for good
They wrapped in a wondrous robe
Of bold design,
Our brave ensign.
20
And islanders yet in a way are we,
Our knowledge is still confined,
And we hear the roar of encircling sea,
To be crossed in the ship of the mind;
And we dream of lands afar,
25
Unknown, unconquered yet,
And we chafe at the bounds there are,
And our spirits fume and fret
For the prize
Of the wise.
30
But we'll never do aught, I know, unless
We are brave as our sires of old,
And face like them the bitterness
Of the battle and storm and cold;
Unless we boldly stand,
35
When men would hold us back,
With the helm-board in our hand,
And our eyes to the shining track
Of what may be
Beyond the sea.
40
There are rocks out there in that wide, wide sea,
'Neath many a darkling stream,
And souls that once sailed out bold and free
Have been carried away in a dream;
For they never came back again—
45
On the deep the ships were lost;
But in spite of the danger and pain,
The ocean has still to be crossed,
And only they do
Who are brave and true.
poem by Frederick George Scott
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The Glory of Ships
The glory of ships is an old, old song,
since the days when the sea-rovers ran
In their open boats through the roaring surf,
and the spread of the world began;
The glory of ships is a light on the sea,
and a star in the story of man.
When Homer sang of the galleys of Greece
that conquered the Trojan shore,
And Solomon lauded the barks of Tyre that
brought great wealth to his door,
'Twas little they knew, those ancient men,
what would come of the sail and the oar.
The Greek ships rescued the West from the East,
when they harried the Persians home;
And the Roman ships were the wings of strength
that bore up the empire, Rome;
And the ships of Spain found a wide new world,
far over the fields of foam.
Then the tribes of courage at last saw clear
that the ocean was not a bound,
But a broad highway, and a challenge to seek
for treasure as yet unfound;
So the fearless ships fared forth to the search,
in joy that the globe was round.
Their hulls were heightened, their sails spread out,
they grew with the growth of their quest;
They opened the secret doors of the East,
and the golden gates of the West;
And many a city of high renown
was proud of a ship on its crest.
The fleets of England and Holland and France
were at strife with each other and Spain;
And battle and storm sent a myriad ships
to sleep in the depths of the main;
But the seafaring spirit could never be drowned,
and it filled up the fleets again.
They greatened and grew, with the aid of steam,
to a wonderful, vast array,
That carries the thoughts and the traffic of men
into every harbor and bay;
And now in the world-wide work of the ships
'tis England that leads the way.
O well for the leading that follows the law
of a common right on the sea!
But ill for the leader who tries to hold
what belongs to mankind in fee!
The way of the ships is an open way,
and the ocean must ever be free!
Remember, O first of the maritime folk,
how the rise of your greatness began.
It will live if you safeguard the round-the-world road
from the shame of a selfish ban;
For the glory of ships is a light on the sea,
and a star in the story of man!
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Table Bay
The sun sets over table bay
and that rough sea lies calm
and a moon rises full,
above the waves
and the thundering breakers
roar like they did
many years before
Odysseus sailed from the island of Ithaca
and went to Troy to war
where he accompanied the heroes
Neoptolemus and Philoctetes and the
armour and shield of great Achilles,
was his to take
and for years he dwelt
on stormy seas and in far away lands.
If per chance his ship would stray
and reach the cape of storms
in another age and time
and his eyes could see
the beauty of that lovely shore,
no other place would
his ship sail to
When Bartolomeu Dias set his ships sails
and left king John ashore,
he was prepared to sail
to the ends of the earth
and no horrendous sea creature
could keep his ships in check.
I wonder what he thought
when the fog faded away
and table mount sprang into view
and table bay lay stretched out
up to its shore
and when he set his cross
did he know that he was marking
a great place
and when he marked his charts
did he wish to come back
to that stormy Cape?
When King John gave the name
Cabo da Bõa Esperança,
did he know that he was naming a place
from where a nation would sprout
and that it would become a city of hope?
[Reference: =>”Cabo da Bõa Esperança=>Cape of Good Hope”]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Song of the Torres Strait Islands
Bold Torres, the sailor, came and went,
with his swarthy, storm-worn band,
he saw Saavedra's Isle to north-
to south a loom of land.
He left unknowing his name would live
through ages with big fate,
as the first to stem with broad-bowed ship
the wash of the Northern Strait.
Round the western coast the Dutch ships crept,
seeking the hidden way;
some left their bones on that bare, west coast,
and the others sailed away.
Turned back, turned back, by reef and shoal,
twin guards of the narrow gate-
the path of the sun from the eastern seas-
they were mocked by the Northern Strait.
Year in, year out, the monsoons swept
o'er the isles of the coral shore,
The savage tossed in his frail canoe,
but the white man came no more.
No sail in sight at the flash of dawn!
No sail at the gloaming late!
Silent and still was the lonley pass-
Unsought was the Northern Strait.
A rattle of arms and a roll of drums,
and the meteor flag flies free,
as an English voice proclaims King George
Lord of the tropic sea.
The parrots scream as the volleys flash;
the gulls their haunts vacate;
and the 'south-east' fills the 'Endeavours' sails
as she heads through the Northern Strait.
And ever since then has our watch been kept
o'er the ships in the narrow way,
where the smoking funnels flare by night,
and the house-flags flaunt by day.
Ever the same strong south-east blows,
and ever we watch and wait,
the wardens we, in Australia's name,
the guard of the Northern Strait.
poem by Ernest Favenc
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The Ghosts of the Sea
The ghosts of the sunken ships remember the fog,
Reminiscent of the danger of a wild, mad dog.
Hidden it the darkness it came into the night,
everyone aboard the sailing ship became affright.
They lost their way in that thick cloud as they fell the rhythm of the waves,
They could hear the water as it crashed against the shore and the caves.
Before the sailor knew it they were in the sea among the rolling, foaming crests,
The deep sea was calling them as the waves broke across their breasts.
The high seas had taken another ship as it lay battered among the rocks, moving
slowly with tide,
Softly they could hear the whispering of the fog as it spoke to the ocean wide.
The ghosts of the sea beckon as the ocean becomes a sheet of glass,
The fog has lifted and the ghosts for the deep invite the ships who would dare pass.
poem by Ron Dawson
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It Comes - Part 2
(It is suggested that the reader reads Part 1 first)
August 1979
Seven fishing boats set sail
into the evening on the South China Sea.
Before the midnight chimed
all seven boats vanished without trace,
no wreckage, debris or survivors were ever found,
it was if the fishing boats had sailed
into oblivion on a calm moonlit sea.
Countries around the world wondered
when the next tragedy would strike
as their navies and fishing fleets sailed the seas.
The seas at night were becoming
more dangerous than normal
especially south of the equator.
Top scientists and marine biologist
gathered for an urgent meeting in Mexico
to see if they could figure out
what was happening to the ships.
Their only clue was the last words
of the survivor of the Sulu Spray.
They discussed patterns to any of the disappearances,
only one seemed prevalent in that all
the ships disappeared at night.
No strange sightings were reported
in the areas during the days or nights
before or after the disappearances.
As the meeting went on into the night
the Grafton Bay reported a blue light
moving at speed beneath the water to local coast guard
before it too vanished
and like the rest left now wreckage, debris or survivors.
At the meeting, many theories were being forwarded
of a deep-sea creature of unknown origin.
They were scoffed at as being too fantastic to be true.
If they were true why hadn’t there been
any reported any sightings of such a creature.
The creature if it existed had to be
as big as or bigger than any ocean going tanker
to enable it to sink large ships.
Then there was the question of wreckage,
there has been none.
From any ship, there is always debris,
but there has been nothing.
Just as the meeting was about to close
news came in about another ship lost.
A ship two miles away reported seeing
what they described as long waving arms
and a blue light just prior the ships disappearance
from their radar screen.
26 September 2009
To be continued
poem by David Harris
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Sathington Willoughby
We are gathered here
Today in these majestic
Halls of old to honor
A man they call
Sathington willoughby.
Theres a joke or two,
A pun or three
I feel that must be
Told then I go on to
Speak of sathington willoughby.
Sathington willoughby
The legislator that
Penned us up a bill
That banned the use
Of certain things like this and that.
song performed by by Primus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Away From The Camera
Away From the Camera.
In the Bay of Bengal, near Tripura, a tank ship ran
aground, an old ship that had been economical for
its owner, carrying crude for a hungry west and
crewed by low paid seamen. And she was sold to
the people who would tear ships apart, like French
avant-garde butchers with hearts of frozen rocks.
Squall in the bay, the ship broke anchor and, like
a horse that seeks grassland, she sought high seas.
Alas she had oil onboard must be caught before spill
washed on sandy shore. Cowboy tugboats rode out
lassoed the old lady back to the place of destruction.
It is in the Bay of Bengal the infidel drowned Bin Laden,
in moonlight his coffin is a silvery specter in the bay.
It drifted to shores of New Jersey, on the voyage made
a devil´s pact with sandy storm; revenge for those who
dare laugh in the face of Islam. For her crew this meant
little, but pale memories of peace when dolphins played
on cobalt sea, and grown men had hearts of poetry.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Phantom Ship. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
In Mather's Magnalia Christi,
Of the old colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme.
A ship sailed from New Haven,
And the keen and frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,
Were heavy with good men's prayers.
'O Lord! if it be thy pleasure'--
Thus prayed the old divine--
'To bury our friends in the ocean,
Take them, for they are thine!'
But Master Lamberton muttered,
And under his breath said he,
'This ship is so crank and walty
I fear our grave she will be!'
And the ships that came from England,
When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of this vessel
Nor of Master Lamberton.
This put the people to praying
That the Lord would let them hear
What in his greater wisdom
He had done with friends so dear.
And at last their prayers were answered:--
It was in the month of June,
An hour before the sunset
Of a windy afternoon,
When, steadily steering landward,
A ship was seen below,
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,
Who sailed so long ago.
On she came, with a cloud of canvas,
Right against the wind that blew,
Until the eye could distinguish
The faces of the crew.
Then fell her straining topmasts,
Hanging tangled in the shrouds,
And her sails were loosened and lifted,
And blown away like clouds.
And the masts, with all their rigging,
Fell slowly, one by one,
And the hulk dilated and vanished,
As a sea-mist in the sun!
And the people who saw this marvel
Each said unto his friend,
That this was the mould of their vessel,
And thus her tragic end.
And the pastor of the village
Gave thanks to God in prayer,
That, to quiet their troubled spirits,
He had sent this Ship of Air.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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North Atlantic Sea
The North Atlantic Sea raged bitter cold
as a convoy of ships sailed swiftly as could be.
A wolf pack of submarines
were waiting somewhere
beneath the cold waters there.
Everyone scanned the icy waters
for some tell tale sign
as the merchant navy steamed on.
A destroyer was their bodyguard
in case trouble flared.
The sky’s clouds were grey
and filled with snow and followed them
into the eastern horizon.
Suddenly an enormous explosion
lit up the sky.
A U-boat had hit a target
and many brave men
were heading for a watery grave.
The destroyer raced towards the stricken ship
as another explosion rocked the sea.
The U-boats were finding their targets.
The destroyer disengaged
and started a depth charge run.
The merchant ships could only steam ahead
as fast as they could
through the icy water
of the North Atlantic Sea.
The destroyer circled again and again,
until finally the bow of a U-boat
surfaced off the port side.
Sailors jumped into the waters
hoping to save their lives.
The destroyer’s Captain ordered
lifeboats to be lowered
to save as many as he could.
Two dozen lives were saved that day
in a bleak November.
The destroyer then went back
to help the merchant men.
Several of the merchant fleet
had slowed and picked up survivors there.
However, many were lost
to the North Atlantic Sea
on this day in the life
of one convoy during the war,
and the brave men
who faced terrible conditions there
on a cruel sea.
12 February 2008
poem by David Harris
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A Salty Dog
'all hands on deck, we've run afloat!' i heard the captain cry
'explore the ship, replace the cook: let no one leave alive!'
Across the straits, around the horn: how far can sailors fly?
A twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive
We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die
No lofty peak, nor fortress bold, could match our captain's eye
Upon the seventh seasick day we made our port of call
A sand so white, and sea so blue, no mortal place at all
We fired the gun, and burnt the mast, and rowed from ship to shore
The captain cried, we sailors wept: our tears were tears of joy
Now many moons and many junes have passed since we made land
A salty dog, this seaman's log: your witness my own hand
song performed by by Styx
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Armada
A nursery governess stood and stared
At a hundred and fifty ships,
That lay in the Harbour at Lisbon where
They loaded each Galleass,
They bristled with brass and iron guns
With cannon and shot to spare,
And thousands of Spanish soldiers, heading
For England, do or dare!
A girl from a gentle Sussex home,
She thought of her father's fate,
A bluff, old-fashioned seafarer
Who had sailed with Francis Drake,
But this was surely the grandest fleet
That ever had put to sea,
Since Christ had walked on the water
On that lake, in Galilee.
She took up her parchment, dipped the quill
And wrote to a face unknown,
She knew that the King of Spain would seek
To usurp Elizabeth's throne,
Her countrymen must be forewarned
Must all be made to see!
She wrote: 'A massive Armada sails
To seize your good country! '
She thrust it into a bottle that
Had held fine Spanish wine,
Then sealed the top with a plug of wax
To keep the message dry.
She flung it over the nearest cliff,
It drifted out to sea,
A message, meant for Sir Francis Drake
And all his company.
The bottle had bobbed on the surface as
The governess knelt and prayed,
'Dear Lord, deliver me just one thing
That England might be saved!
I'm merely an English governess,
Not versed in tricks or guile,
But if I could save dear England, then
My life had been worthwhile.'
The bottle still bobbed in the Channel, then
Was swept due south and west,
Right out to the mid-Atlantic swell
It made its way, unblessed,
For thirty years it had bobbled about,
Remained unseen by man,
Then landed in Plymouth Harbour, and
Lay careless on the sand.
The tribe who discovered it couldn't read,
They thought that it was a sign,
The gods had sent them a message, locked
In a glass that smelt of wine.
The parchment lay in a curl inside
But nothing would set it free,
It said: 'A massive Armada sails
To seize your good country! '
There followed a ship with billowing sails,
And men with a paler skin,
The lettering spelt 'The Mayflower',
They just couldn't read it then.
They threw the bottle back into the sea
To rid the land of its curse,
But soon the others came billowing in,
The 'Mayflower' was the first!
While over in Sussex there lived a maid,
Who once was a governess,
For one great day in a humble life,
She thought, had seen her blessed!
She thought of the sailor who'd read her note,
Who'd plucked it out from the sea,
And routed the Spanish Armada - 'Thanks
To Francis Drake, and me! '
She never would know, the bottle was still
Afloat by the eastern coast,
For thirty years in the Caribbean
Her message floated, lost.
It came ashore at Spanish Town
Its message was there to see,
It said: 'A mighty Armada sails
To seize your good country! '
And then came the English buccaneers,
Port Royal, their pirate den,
The Spaniards lost Jamaica to
The Fleet of William Penn,
The bottle floated away once more
To travel the world around,
In Sussex, a humble governess
Was planted, there in the ground.
A hundred and thirty years went by,
The bottle had floated still,
Until it discovered that Southern Land
Of virgin green and hill,
It came ashore at Port Jackson, lay
Unheeded by the sea,
Was brought ashore by a warrior,
An Aborigine.
He never had seen its like, he tried
To understand its creed,
The message was plainly visible
If only he could read,
While back in Sussex, stood the stone
Now powdered where she lay,
A humble Sussex governess
Whose message ruled the day.
The First Fleet came in '88,
And drove them from the shore,
This seemingly great Armada that
Would launch Australia.
He threw the bottle back, in hopes,
This Aborigine,
That the ships would sail away again -
But this would never be!
That bottle, chipped and scarred by time
Went round the world once more,
A hundred and fifty years or so
Before it came ashore,
But then the Great Armada sailed
The greatest yet by far,
That final message was waiting there,
On a beach called 'Omaha! '
20 October 2009
poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Wild Wild Sea
I saw it again this evening,
Black sail in a pale yellow sky
And just as before in a moment,
It was gone where the grey gulls fly
If it should happen again I shall worry
That only a strange ship could fly
And my sanity scans the horizon
In the light of a darkening sky
That night as I walked in my slumber
I walked into the sea strand
And I swam with the moon and her lover
Until I lost sight of the land
I swam till the night became morning
Black sea in the reddening sky
Found myself on the deck on a rolling ship
So far where no grey gulls fly
All around me was silence
As if mocking my frail human hopes
And a question mark hung in the canvas
For the wind that had died in the ropes
I may have slept for an hour
I may have slept for a day
For a woke in a bed of white linen
And the sky was the colour of clay
At first just a rustle of canvas
And the gentlest breath on my face
But a galloping line of white horses
Said that soon we were in for a race
The gentle sigh turned to a howling
And the grey sky she angered to black
And my anxious eyes searched the horizon
With the gathering sea at my back
Did I see the shade of a sailor
On the bridge through the wheelhouse pane
Held fast to the wheel of the rocking ship
As I squinted my eyes in the rain
For the ship had turned into the wind
Against the storm to brace
And underneath the sailors hat
I saw my fathers face
If a prayer today is spoken
Please offer it for me
When the bridge to heaven is broken
And youve lost on the wild wild sea
Lost on the wild wild sea...
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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High School
A traveler's blurry vision clears up as the ship gone near the port.
Mist that once engulfed us now spit us out of his territory
Expedition has ended but journey to live never.
These crews were working together in the oceans for approximately 800 days
Plus 104 days of land tours.
They'd change captains 4 times yet pirates keep coming in.
They were unafraid and fight back.
Yet they do not have torpedoes nor cannons but words.
The seas got mad for the disturbance
Wind blew hard and brought a storm
Made huge waves smashing us unto the rocks of an endless shore
Our ship was there, almost destroyed
However these crews with the help of the captain
As we never expected stood up and initiate the ship's
Recovery
Now sailing proudly exclaiming gladly with every island passed through
Yet the points were all filled with X
Every location that should be colonized were colonized
We are heading back to the origin
Every lives of this Crew family should be lived separately
The expedition is over, but we'd nowhere to go
But away to live prosperously
Yet to complete a seafarers life was to go unto the sea
So to live our life completely, indeed for thee
We go another sail with a different rail
To learn how to seek treasure upon
The burning sun and the shores with infinite sand.
poem by Ellirie Aviles
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Messmates
He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
At the first dawn of day;
We dropped him down the side full drearily
When the light died away.
It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
And the great ships go by.
He's there alone with green seas rocking him
For a thousand miles round;
He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
And we're homeward bound.
It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
While the months and the years roll over him
And the great ships go by.
I wonder if the tramps come near enough
As they thrash to and fro,
And the battle-ships' bells ring clear enough
To be heard down below;
If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there,
The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him
When the great ships go by.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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