Now for the hot dog-days within the tropics,
Three sailors and a boy in the sick-bay!
Spasms, and diarrhoea and hydropics
Proclaim, both fore and aft, their morbid sway:
Lime-juice and English cholera are the topics
Of conversation all the live-long day:
“Give me some drink, Titinius,” Caesar said,
So does each patient now on his sick-bed.
Meanwhile the greenhorn cries, “Land, land!” and fancy
Paints trees and villas on the seeming strand;
“Sir, I don’t see it.” “No!” I heard a man say –
He saw three children dancing on the sand.
“Look now! I’ll ask the captain’s gig if once he
Were out on deck. Sir, I am sure ’tis land.”
“Land! not at all! ‘Tis but Cape Flyaway;
You’ll see it often at the dawn of day.”
I love the deep sea, be it storm or still! O,
And I love to bound its waves among;
When, with his snow-white mane, the mountain billow
Like some gigantic centaur rides along;
When the tall mast bends like the limber willow,
And the rough sailors chaunt the accustomed song,
“Ho cheerily;” They hoist the close-reefed sail.
“Ho cheerily;” She scuds before the gale!
(John Dunmore Lang)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Cry PoemsBased on Keywords: scuds, spasms, centaur, gig, cholera, sick-bed, dog-days, close-reefed, lime-juice, sick-bay, flyaway
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