This bark that now, my friends, you see,
Asserts she once was far more swift
Than other craft, whate'er the tree
Might ply the oar or sailyard shift,
She passed them all on every sea.
She asked the Cyclad Isles to say--
Can they deny--rough Adria's shore,
Proud Rhodes, and every land that lay
Where savage Thracia's tempests roar--
She asked her native Pontic bay--
Where first her leafy crown was stirred
By winds that swept Cytorian rocks.
(Through rustling leaves her voice was heard.)
And you, Cytorus, crowned with box,
And you, Amastris, hear the word.
For all, she says, was known to you,
And still is known. For on your top
She first took root and proudly grew,
Till severed trunk and branches drop,
And keel and oars thy waves embue.
How oft she bore, when winds were light,
Her master over sea and strait,
Stemmed currents strong, and tacked to right
Or left, and bravely held the weight
Of breeze that strained her canvass tight.
Nor was there need for her to make
Or costly vows, or incense burn;
Or sea-shore gods her guides to take
On her last voyage, last return,
From sea-ward to this limpid lake.
Now all is o'er--grown old, in rest
She waits decay--with homage due,
And grateful thought, and prayer addressed,
She dedicates herself to you,
Twin stars, twin gods, twin brothers blest.
GRATIAN.--Ah! well done, poor old timber-toe--laid up at last--no
"mutile lignum," that's clear enough. I hope she had a soft berth, and
lay evenly in it. It is quite uncomfortable to see a poor thing, though
it be little more than decayed ribs, with hard rock piercing them here
and there, and the creature labouring still to keep the life in and
weather out of her unsupported sides and bottom, and looking piteously
to be moved off those jutting points that pin her down in pain, as boys
serve a cock-chafer. He is a hard man that does not animate inanimate
things. He is out of nature's kin. All sailors love their ships, and
they are glorious. Catullus is more to my humour here than in his
love-lines on Lesbia. She could get another lover, and if truth be told,
and that by Catullus himself, did; but his poor boat! If captured and
taken to the slave-market, she would not find a bidder. Well, well, it
is pleasanter to see her laid up high and dry, with now and then her
master's and owner's affectionate eye upon her, than to look at the
broom at her mast head. Catullus knew the wood she came from, and how it
grew--it had vitality, and he never can believe it quite gone.
AQUILIUS.--There is a poem by Turner on this subject.
GRATIAN.--By Turner?--what Turner?--You don't mean, "The Fallacies of
Hope" Turner?
AQUILIUS.--The same--but I should be sorry indeed, to see a vessel built
after the measure of his verses. She would require too nice an
adjustment of ballast. I doubt if she would bear a rough sea. The poem I
speak of was written with his palette's pen. It was the towing in the
old Temeraire to be broken up. There she was, on the waters, as her own
element, a Leviathan still, a history of "battle and of breeze"--behind
her the night coming in, sun setting, and in glory too. Her days are
over, and she is towed in to her last anchorage. The feeling of the
picture was touching, and there was a dignity and greatness in it of
mighty charm.
GRATIAN.--I remember it well, and it is well remembered now: but here is
the Curate with his paper in his hand: let us hear what he has to say.
CURATE.--I have the worse chance with you, for you have poeticised the
subject so much more largely than Catullus himself, that you will listen
with less pleasure to my translation; but you shall have it.