Читать книгу Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea - Charles H. L. Johnston - Страница 9

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One day I saw a ship upon the sands

Careened upon beam ends, her tilted deck

Swept clear of rubbish of her long-past wreck;

Her colors struck, but not by human hands;

Her masts the driftwood of what distant strands!

Her frowning ports, where, at the Admiral’s beck,

Grim-visaged cannon held the foe in check,

Gaped for the frolic of the minnow bands.

The seaweed banners in her fo’ks’le waved,

A turtle basked upon her capstan head;

Her cabin’s pomp the clownish sculpin braved,

And, on her prow, where the lost figure-head

Once turned the brine, a name forgot was graved,

It was “The Irresistible” I read.

—Heaton.