Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SEA-CHAPLAIN'S PETITION TO THE LIEUTENANTS IN THE WARD ROOM, by J." "T. [PSEUD.]


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SEA-CHAPLAIN'S PETITION TO THE LIEUTENANTS IN THE WARD ROOM, by                    
First Line: "you who can grant, or can refuse, the power"
Last Line: "thus grant my suit, as grant unhurt you may, / your chaplain,and without your groats, shall pray!"
Alternate Author Name(s): "t., J.;
Subject(s): Muses;poetry & Poets;prayer;rhyme


YOU who can grant, or can refuse, the pow'r
Low from the stern to drop the golden show'r,
When nature prompts, oh! patient deign to hear,
If not a parson's, yet a poet's pray'r!
Ere taught the deference to commissions due,
Presumptuous, I aspired to eat with you;
But now, the difference known 'twixt sea and shore,
That mighty happiness I ask no more.
An humbler boon, and of a different kind
(Grant, heav'n, it may a different answer find!),
Attends you now (excuse the rhyme to write):
'Tis, though I eat not with you, let me sh—e!
When, in old bards, Arion tunes his song,
The ravished dolphins round the vessel throng;
Verse soothed of old the monsters of the sea,
Verse saved Arion, verse may plead for me!
And, if the Muse can aught of truth divine,
The boon the Muse petitions shall be mine;
For, sure, this answer would be wondrous odd:
'Sh—e with the common tars, thou Man of God!'
Of those more vulgar tubes, which downward peep
Near where the lion awes the raging deep,
The waggish youth (I tell what I am told)
Oft smear the sides with excremental gold;
Say then, when pease, within the belly pent,
Roar at the port and struggle for a vent,
Say, shall I squat on dung remissly down,
And with unseemly ordure stain the gown?
Or shall I—terrible to think!—displodeAgainst th' unbuttoned plush the
smoky load,
The laugh of swabbers?—Heavens avert the jest,
And from th' impending scorn preserve your priest!
But grant that Cloacina, gracious queen!
Preserves her od'rous shrine forever clean,
Yet frequent must I feel th' offensive spray,
When the tossed vessel ploughs the swelling sea;
Yet, as I sit, incessant must I hear
The language of the nauseous galley near,
Where blockheads, by the list'ning priest unawed,
Though uncommissioned, dare blaspheme their God!
Happy the man, admitted oft to ride
Within the ward-room, where his tools abide,
The Man of Leather! he, when nature calls,
Can for the needful space repose his awls;
And, while I squeeze o'er some ignobler seat,
There disembogue his vile burgoo in state;
While peeping Nereids smoke the Christian jest,
The honoured cobbler and neglected priest,
And swear by Styx, and all the pow'rs below,
In good old heathen days 'twas never so!
Ah! what avails it that, in days of yore,
Th' instructive lashes of the birch I bore;
For four long years with logic stuffed my head,
And, feeding thought, went supperless to bed;
That, last, enrolled in Alma's graduate band,
I felt the hallowing load of Hoadly's hand:
Since you, with whom my lot afloat is thrown
(O sense! O elegance! to land unknown!),
Superior rev'rence! to the man refuse
Who mends your morals, than who mends your shoes!
But Crispin saves your purse, you answer. True:
Nor does your priest without his off'ring sue.
Whene'er, compelled, I seek the needful hole,
In some by-nook I'll leave some moral scroll;
The moral scroll who next succeeds may reach,
And to his brains apply it, or his br—.
Thus shall old journals plead a just excuse,
And one sea-chaplain boast his works of use.
And as yourselves from time to time repair
To drop the relics of digestion there,
Still may your pork an easy exit gain,
Nor cause to form one ugly face in vain;
Still may your flip, refined to amber, flow
In streams salubrious to the brine below,
Nor ever in too hot a current hiss;
But may all holes prove innocent as this!
Thus grant my suit, as grant unhurt you may,
Your chaplain, and without your groats, shall pray!





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