The Ancient Log Book

’Tis a time eaten volume with pages so blurred That they seem to peer out through a fog, But our fancy illumines each lustreless word Of that battered old “wind-jammer’s” log. Till our eyes gazing out through those angular lines Like windows, transparent, behold Far vistas of seas where adventure combines With “spices” and “teak wood” and “gold.” “Off the Horn” where the “greybeards” loomed up “mountain high” All “our topsails were carried away”; Then ’twas “cutlass and pike” when the “pirates drew nigh” As “becalmed off Macassar we lay.” “One man hurt” then a later notation, “he’s dead” And “was buried at sea” all we know, He “signed from Tahiti” a “good man” they said, “The fo’castle hands called him ‘Joe’” Lone wanderer far from his native lagoon Was he mourned by some garlanded maid? We ponder till jarred by a “roaring Typhoon” And “there on our beam ends we laid”. “With our water casks low” when our “Bread had give out” “We fetched by some island unknown” Though we “dragged on the coral” while “Going about” We added “their stores” to our own. There’s the wash and the surge of the murmurous deep In each billowing flourish of ink. Though the captains are silent in fathomless sleep What they tersely inscribed is a link. With a past, when our banner, its glory aflame To the winds of the heavens was flung; And their deeds are forever an epic of fame Such as Homer of old might have sung.