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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOM DEADLIGHT, by HERMAN MELVILLE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties Last Line: And do'nt blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel. Subject(s): Death; Sailing & Sailors; Dead, The; Seamen; Sails | |||
During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British Dreadnaught, 9', wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou'-wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he involuntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought: -- Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties, -- Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain, For I've received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again. I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for to strike soundings clear -- The black scud a' flying; but by God's blessing dam'me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I'll steer. I have worried through the waters that are called the Doldrums, And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope -- Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads: -- Flying-Dutchman -- oddsbobbs -- off the Cape of Good Hope! But what's this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt? The white goney's wing? -- how she rolls! -- 'tis the Cape! -- Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape. Dead-reckoning, says Joe, it w'ont do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t'other night. Dead-reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right. The signal! -- it streams for the grand fleet to anchor. The Captains -- the trumpets -- the hullabaloo! Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral he's squinting at you! But give me my tot, Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let's have your flipper, it's good for to feel; And do'nt sew me up without baccy in mouth, boys, And do'nt blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SAILS OF MURMUR by ANSELM HOLLO THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TOM BOWLING ['S EPITAPH] by CHARLES DIBDIN HOW'S MY BOY? by SYDNEY THOMPSON DOBELL LOVE AT SEA by THEOPHILE GAUTIER FORMERLY A SLAVE' (AN IDEALIZED PORTRAIT, BY E. VEDDER) by HERMAN MELVILLE THE COMING STORM' (A PICTURE BY R. S. GIFFORD) by HERMAN MELVILLE A DIRGE FOR MCPHERSON; KILLED IN FRONT OF ATLANTA by HERMAN MELVILLE |
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