|
Dear Friends
"17:01.0N 61:46.4W"
George is back on board and we are
comfortably anchored again in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua, which regular bloggers
will know as the home of the megayachts.
We had a little excitement on Tuesday
morning at about 0530 (!) There was a strange rumbling noise which we heard
through the hull for ten seconds or so. Coincidentally having read the pilot
book about seismic activity in the Dominica channel, I immediately identified
this as an earthquake. This was strangely correct, but the epicentre was just 15
miles away between here and Montserrat - a 5.3 richter apparently and very
unusual. Nothing since and we hope an isolated incident.
Having posted the last "Itinerary Blog" was
of course a stupid thing to do. There is no more sure way of spoiling your plans
than telling the world what you would like to do...
We decided to upgrade the plotter software
last week (a normal simple procedure - net download etc.) However, the warranty
works in Lagos last October seem to have deleted the plotter serial number so
that it will not accept upgrades or indeed anything else. As I write, the
plotter has been removed and is in the care of Signal Locker, Nelson's Dockyard,
en route to the USA for repair by Raymarine. Hmmmmm !
On the positive side, we have had the rig
tensioned a little and Greg Outboards has finally got the Yamaha outboard to
work properly. So right now we're sitting around with not much to do. We have taken some video of Falmouth Harbour including
megayachts and we'll take a bit of the Dockyard too and post that on the website
in the usual way. We have a few jobs which we can get on with and we can
visit a few known anchorages, where we're comfy without the plotter. We may also
commission a few more bits of work.
But I know what you're all thinking - and
yes, it's not that much hardship. In fact there is so little hardship that
George's Dad was introducing him as a
"lotus-eater" to friends in London...
So with thanks to Tennyson and as you don't
generally get much poetry on a yacht blog, we thought you might like to take a
ten minute break and contemplate ........
“COURAGE!” he said,
and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward
soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always
afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like
one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the
moon;
And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to
fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams!
some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did
go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous
sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the
inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged
snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d; and, dew’d with showery drops,
Up-clomb the
shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset
linger’d low adown
In the red West; thro’ mountain clefts the dale
Was
seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border’d with palm, and many a winding
vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things
always seem’d the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark
faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters
came.
Branches they bore
of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To
each, but whoso did receive of them
And taste, to him the gushing of the
wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his
fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And
deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart
did make.
They sat them down
upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet
it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but
evermore
Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering
fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, “We will return no more;”
And
all at once they sang, “Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no
longer roam.”
CHORIC
SONG
I
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from
blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of
shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit
lies,
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep
down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro’ the
moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And
from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
II
Why are we
weigh’d upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp
distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have
rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of
things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another
thrown;
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep
our brows in slumber’s holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit
sings,
“There is no joy but calm!”—
Why should we only toil, the roof and
crown of things?
III
Lo! in the
middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud
With winds
upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no
care,
Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning
yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten’d with the summer
light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn
night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its
place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the
fruitful soil.
IV
Hateful is the
dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life;
ah, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward
fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it
that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and
parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To
war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing
wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence—ripen,
fall, and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful
ease.
V
How sweet it
were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to
seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber
light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each
other’s whisper’d speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the
crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy
spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of
mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With
those old faces of our infancy
Heap’d over with a mound of grass,
Two
handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
VI
Dear is the
memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And
their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change;
For surely now our household
hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we
should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes
over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of
the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten
things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so
remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
’Tis hard to settle order once
again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on
pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many
wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
VII
But, propped
on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet—while warm airs lull us, blowing
lowly—
With half-dropped eyelids still,
Beneath a heaven dark and
holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the
purple hill—
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro’ the
thick-twined vine—
To watch the emerald-color’d water falling
Thro’ many a
woven acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling
brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the
pine.
VIII
The Lotos
blooms below the barren peak,
The Lotos blows by every winding creek;
All
day the wind breathes low with mellower tone;
Thro’ every hollow cave and
alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is
blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll’d to
starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the
wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an
oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and
lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For
they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
Far below them in the
valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
Round their golden houses, girdled
with the gleaming world;
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted
lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying
hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful
song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale
of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of
men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring
toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they
perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell
Suffer endless
anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds
of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the
shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye,
brother mariners, we will not wander more.
We hope you enjoyed that: G thought
we should miss out the Choric Song, but hey, a ten minute poetry break never
hurt anyone.
Don't worry, the most
mind-altering consumumption is ice-cold beer and that does not generally
induce melancholy, anyway, we will do some more wandering on the oceans, not to
mention returning home someday.
Best Wishes
George &
Michael
|
