WHETHER a ship's poetic? -- Bowles would own, <br />If here he dwelt, where Nature is prosaic, <br />Unpicturesque, unmusical, and where <br />Nature-reflecting Art is not yet born; -- <br />A land without antiquities, with one, <br />And only one, poor spot of classic ground, <br />(That on which Cook first landed) -- where, instead <br />Of heart-communings with ancestral relicks, <br />Which purge the pride while they exalt the mind, <br />We've nothing left us but anticipation, <br />Better (I grant) than utter selfishness, <br />Yet too o'erweening -- too American; <br />Where's no past tense, the ign'rant present's all; <br />Or only great by the All hail, hereafter! <br />One foot of Future's glass should rest on Past; <br />Where Hist'ry is not, Prophecy is guess -- <br />If here he dwelt, Bowles (I repeat) would own <br />A ship's the only poetry we see. <br />For, first, she brings us "news of human kind," <br />Of friends and kindred, whom perchance she held <br />As visitors, that she might be a link, <br />Connecting the fond fancy of far friendship, <br />A few short months before, and whom she may <br />In a few more, perhaps, receive again. <br />Next is a ship poetic, forasmuch <br />As in this spireless city and prophane, <br />She is to my home-wand'ring phantasy, <br />With her tall anch'ring masts, a three-spir'd minster, <br />Van-crown'd; her bell our only half-hour chimes. <br />Lastly, a ship is poetry to me, <br />Since piously I trust, in no long space, <br />Her wings will bear me from this prose-dull land.<br /><br />Barron Field<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-reading-the-controversy-between-lord-byron-an/
