A book of Bristol sonnets By H. D. Rawnsley |
 |
ON SEEING TWO VESSELS (CUTTER-RIGGED)
PASS ONE ANOTHER AT
AVONMOUTH. |
 | A book of Bristol sonnets |  |
102
ON SEEING TWO VESSELS (CUTTER-RIGGED) PASS ONE ANOTHER AT AVONMOUTH.
Man meets with man, and goes in silence by,Though Death, who walks with either, gives “Good-day!”
The cattle, meeting in the market-way,
Claim kinship, nose their kind, and pass to die!
Brook unto brook will call it's pleasant cry:
Buds pass “Good-morn” from hedge to haw-thorn's spray:
And they, who listen, hear the Wild-Fowl say,
“Farewell,” as through the night their legions fly!
What wonder when these ships together came,
Those who remember the shape of a cutter's mainsail, and the rake aft of a cutter's mast, will have no difficulty in seeing how, against the sky, the letters A H seem to be formed by the two vessels at the moment of meeting, and how, as they part, the curve of their two mainsails makes, with the sky, the initial letter U of the word “United.”
Some happy word of welcome should be passed?
And narrowing sky, and jib, and leaning mast,
“A.H.,” in fancy's lips, “All Hail” should frame?
That, by the initial, as apart they flew,
“United,” from their mainsails' curve, I knew?
| A book of Bristol sonnets | |