FIGUREHEAD: A LION RAMPANT

Posted by Admin on 27 June 2006, 12:00 am

Quaintest names, at least a score,
shipwrights used in men-of-war,
built for George, the last of four:
Falconer defined them.

Futtocks, whip-staff, taforil,
transoms lower, transoms wing;
stern-post tenoned to the keel,
googings where the pintles swing.

Fashion-piece to dead-wood fixed;
apron scarfed and fayed to stem,
garbits, wales, with carlings mixed,
indicate a few of them.

Orlop, main, and two decks more,
total cannon, seventy-four:
lines improved – in days of yore
Phineas Pett designed them.

From Kairos – Selected Poems No 1, a book of Mr Hudson’s poetry.

Kairos means “opportune moment”.

T. C. Hudson

© T. C. Hudson.

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