Cargoes

[bunn]

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

And it struck me that presumably when written (which seems to have been around 1902, according to google, odd, I would have guessed a bit later) the feel of the poem was of change, it went Poetic - > Gritty/Realistic.

Whereas now it's kind of all poetic, only with different flavours - Tyne coal, carried by a little coaster with a smoke-stack, how quaint. Pig-lead? What is pig-lead, it sounds marvellously Victorian? And I can remember tin trays, but do they still exist? All of ours are some sort of moulded resin...

I think it needs another verse. I had a go at one while walking the hounds but I had nothing to write it down on so I will have to have another go - Anyone else fancy having a go?

Comments

Re: Pig-lead

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know about iron being made in pigs, and was assuming that pig-lead was probably something along the same lines. What I was trying to say I suppose, is that lead is no longer a day to day sort of thing, and that I don't instinctively know if pig-lead is a particular sort of lead, or a particular way of dividing or delivering it or what.

It seems a strange, exotic term, not the dull, mundane name that it was when it was used in the poem, and I would guess, is probably not imported as a raw material, as pig-lead in fact, much - those who need lead probably mostly get it machined somewhere cheaper and import the finished product.