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Rudyard Kipling - The Three-Decker
Work rating: Medium

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best —
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.
 
Fair held the breeze behind us — `twas warm with lovers` prayers.
We`d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.
 
By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.
 
We asked no social questions — we pumped no hidden shame —
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren`t exactly Yussufs, but — Zuleika didn`t tell.
 
No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
`Twas fiddle in the forc`s`le — `twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.
 
I left `em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!
 
That route is barred to steamers:  you`ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They`re just beyond your skyline, howe`er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.
 
Swing round your aching search-light — `twill show no haven`s peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep`s unrest —
And you aren`t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!
 
But when you`re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You`ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.
 
You`ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You`ll hear the long-drawn thunder `neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!
 
Hull down — hull down and under — she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All`s well — all`s well aboard her — she`s left you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.
 
Her crew are babes or madmen?  Her port is all to make?
You`re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming`s sake?
Well, tinker up your engines — you know your business best —
She`s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!
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