2012年2月14日火曜日

Does Cumb Digest

does cumb digest

Shipwreck Poem: The Seaman's Home

It might be a bit of an exaggeration to label this a "shipwreck poem," but three sonorous stanzas about sailors, the sea and a"cumbring wreck" counts to me. I came across The Seaman's Homea few months back while researching early nineteenth-century shipwreck ephemera. I don't know who wrote it and this is the only copy I've found so far.
The image above was taken from the January 18, 1802 edition of Harrisburg,Pennsylvania'sThe Oracle of Dauphin, and Harrisburgh Advertiser (great name for a newspaper!). Below is a transcription. Enjoy!

The Seaman's Home

Oh ye, whose lives on land are passd,

And keep from dangroud seas aloof,

Who careless listen to the blast,

Or beating rains upon the roof;

You little heed how seamen fare,

Condemnd the angry storm to bear.

 

Sometimes when breakers vex the tide,

He takes his station on the deck;

He clears away the cumbring wreck;

Yet while the billow oer him foam,

The Ocean is his only home.

 

Still fresher blows the midnight gale,

All hands reef top-sails, are the cries,

And while the clouds the heavens veil,

Aloft to reef the sail he flies!

In storms so rending, doomd to roam,

The ocean is the seamens home.

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