I have a feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one,
With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam:
Ay, it was unkindly done.
But so they serve the Obsolete —
Even so, Stone Fleet!
You'll say I'm doting; do you think
I scudded round the Horn in one —
The Tenedos, a glorious
Good old craft as ever run —
Sunk ( how all unmeet! )
With the Old Stone Fleet.
An India ship of fame was she,
Spices and shawls and fans she bore;
A whaler when the wrinkles came —
Turned off! till, spent and poor,
Her bones were sold ( escheat )!
Ah! Stone Fleet.
Four were erst patrician keels
( Names attest what families be ),
The Kensington, and Richmond too,
Leonidas, and Lee:
But now they have their seat
With the Old Stone Fleet.
To scuttle them — a pirate deed —
Sack them, and dismast;
They sunk so slow, they died so hard,
But gurgling dropped at last.
Their ghosts in gales repeat
Woe's us, Stone Fleet!
And all for naught. The waters pass —
Currents will have their way;
Nature is nobody's ally;‘ tis well;
The harbor is bettered — will stay.
A failure, and complete,
Was your Old Stone Fleet.