The ship’s undone—
So far asea as to have
Lost sight of the shore—
With neither sail nor anchor.
The hands on deck are not our crew,
For we’re all forced below
To do whatever we can find
To suit us here.
We pretend away
The mounting peril—
Thinking ourselves brave for it.
We have no captain,
Save the scoundrel who sold us out—
Who sups even now aboard
The pirate frigate that tows us leeward
To some country not our own.
None dare challenge
The guards topside,
Nor cut the towline
And fend for ourselves.
And so she creaks and moans as
She is dragged through the night—
The weeping, once-proud leviathan, now
Hooked through the nostrils
By the captor.
We grumble,
But still we drink our rum
And eat our stores—
While they hold—
And boast of what grand sailors
We will be again someday soon
On the patriotic sea.
We blame the captain,
His treachery so plainly seen,
But we know we are undone
By our own hands—
Both by the wicked among us
Who worked corruption and subterfuge
And by the idle
Who did nothing to stop it—
Who strain even now to count that idleness
As anything but evil itself.
We know.
Truth be told,
Our why went overboard
Into the impossible abyss.
And none dare go in after it.
Nor did any at first fight
Sufficient as to keep it.
We did not keep our watch,
And now it is not ours.
The others would pummel me
For saying it aloud,
But I will whisper it in your ear:
We dared not risk our proud comforts
For what then seemed such cold diligence.
And now we have but to wait and see
What shall befall us,
For we have no heart left in us —
No matter what we may say—
That we should sail our own ship
Once again.
