POEM OF THE DAY

THIS poem by James Elroy Flecker (18841915) has fascinated me since childhood with its wonderful imagery, though it perhaps goes over the top at the end with the mast bursting open with a rose! Flecker worked for the British Consular Service in the Eastern Mediterranean and died sadly young of tuberculosis. His best known publications were The Golden Journey to Samarkand and the play Hassan.

THE OLD SHIPS

I have seen old ships sail like swans sleep Beyond the village which men still call

Tyre,

With leaden age o’ercargoed, dipping deep for Famagusta and the hidden sun

That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; And all those ships were certainly so old Who knows how oft with squat or noisy gun,

Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, The pirate Genoese

Hell-raked them till they rolled

Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.

But now through friendly seas they softly run

Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,

Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

But I have seen,

Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn,

An image tumbled on a rose-swept bay, A drowsy ship of some yet older day;

And, wonder’s breath indrawn,

Thought I – who knows – who knows – but in that same

(Fished up beyond Aeaea, patched up new,

- Stern painted brighter blue)

That talkative bald-headed seaman came (Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)

From Troy’s doom-crimson shore,

And with great lies about his wooden horse

Set the crew laughing and forgot his course.

It was so old a ship – who knows, who knows?

And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain To see the mast burst open with a rose And the whole deck put on it leaves again.