The Old Ships

[shewhomust]

Every summer, Sail Training International organises a race in which sailing ships from around the world compete over a series of stages, and dock at different cities en route. It is a slightly artificial event, a massive promotional opportunity for the participating cities, for the commercial sponsors and for an alleged good cause which exists only to perpetuate itself. With that disclaimer, it also provides people with a great deal of enjoyment. And the ships are very beautiful.

This year, the race returned to Tyneside. All week the ships have been arriving and mooring along both sides of the Tyne. On Wednesday morning we braved the crowds and the ballyhoo to walk along the Quayside and admire the city in this new adornment, the perspectives of the bridges seen through tangles of rigging, the Millennium Bridge opening and closing, blinking its great eye - and the ships themselves, and all the irresistible details of figurehead and brass and canvas.

And yesterday they left on a grey, rainy morning, sailing down the Tyne and out to sea, to start the final stage of the race to Fredrikstad.

The Old Ships

I have seen old ships like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men call Tyre,
With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell-raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.
But now through friendly seas they softly run,
Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,
Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

But I have seen,
Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn
And image tumbed on a rose-swept bay,
A drowsy ship of some yet older day;
And, wonder's breath indrawn,
Thought I - who knows - who knows - but in that same
(Fished up beyond Ææa, patched up new
- Stern painted brighter blue -)
That talkative, bald-headed seaman came
(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)
From Troy's doom-crimson shore,
And with great lies about his wooden horse
Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.

It was so old a ship - who knows, who knows?
- And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.

James Elroy Flecker

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

As I read the poem, I thought: I know this poet, and for once I was right: it is Flecker. I felt quite proud of myself.

And Chaz Brenchley also has a perspective on the event as I suspect does half the North-East...

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Every once in a while, we get a solitary Old Ship up the Detroit river, for some promotional whatnot. They are amazing to see. You can really ignore the risk and the adventure of a water journey when all you see is small pleasure boats taking a weekend day's tour of a coastline or the invulnerable looking lakeliners (think oceanliner, but less deep and much, much longer) cruising toward the northern great lakes. But there is something so frail in the appearance of all that timber and sail rigging that reminds you of the risks that were taken by those who set out to explore our planet by boat. Definitely gives you something of a thrill.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Ooooo, pretty ships! You have friended me :-) Do I know you in real life?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Hello -

Umm... you mean this isn't real life? It's unlikely that we've met otherwhere: I bumped into you in someone (sorry, can't remember who)'s comments, clicked through, read a couple of posts and thought I'd like to read more - I may have been in a particularly expansive mood, but I think it was REUNITE GONDWANALAND that did it! Hope that's OK...

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

That's perfectly fine...I just wanted to make sure that you weren't someone I should have figured out the identity of. Glad you like the journal!