Straight on the glittering ice-field, by the caves of the lost Dordogne, Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on bone Even to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled and sung, Blessing his tribe for their blindness. _Heed ye the Story of Ung!_ THE THREE-DECKER “_The three-volume novel is extinct._” Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best -- The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. Fair held the breeze behind us -- 'twas warm with lovers' prayers. We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. We asked no social questions -- we pumped no hidden shame -- We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. We weren't exactly Yussufs, but -- Zuleika didn't tell. No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. 'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le -- 'twas garlands on the mast, For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift again Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. They're just beyond your skyline, howe'er so far you cruise In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. Swing round your aching search-light -- 'twill show no haven's peace. Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas! Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest -- And you aren't one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest! But when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head; While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!