DON'T believe in the Flying Dutchman? I 've known the fellow for years; My button I 've wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears! He 's a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the wind's eye, straight as a bee. Back topsails! you can't escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him, The Lord knows how long out of date! Like a long-disembodied idea, (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) He stands there; you fancy you see a Coeval of Teniers or Douw. He greets you; would have you take letters: You scan the addresses with dread, While he mutters his @3donners@1 and @3wetters@1, — They 're all from the dead to the dead! You seem taking time for reflection, But the heart fills your throat with a jam, As you spell in each faded direction An ominous ending in @3dam@1. Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend? That were changing green turtle to mock: No, thank you! I 've found out which wedge-end Is meant for the head of a block. The fellow I have in my mind's eye Plays the old Skipper's part here on shore, And sticks like a burr, till he finds I Have got just the gauge of his bore. This postman 'twixt one ghost and t' other, With last dates that smell of the mould, I have met him (O man and brother, Forgive me!) in azure and gold. In the pulpit I 've known of his preaching, Out of hearing behind the time, Some statement of Balaam's impeaching, Giving Eve a due sense of her crime. I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing Into something (God save us!) more dry, With the Water of Life itself washing The life out of earth, sea, and sky. O dread fellow-mortal, get newer Despatches to carry, or none! We 're as quick as the Greek and the Jew were At knowing a loaf from a stone. Till the couriers of God fail in duty, We sha'n't ask a mummy for news, Nor sate the soul's hunger for beauty With your drawings from casts of a Muse. |