Publication
Published in Rewards and Fairies (1910) where it follows “The Wrong Thing”
Notes on the text
[line 6] the Marble Arch: The Marble Arch is at the crossing of Oxford Street and Edgware Road in central London, a familiar landmark.
[line 18] Lot or Methusalem: patriarchs in Genesis. Notes on the text
[ine 19] Moses (a man I hate): To save his people, Moses brought down the ten Plagues of Egypt, led the Children of Israel out of captivity, and destroyed the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. (Exodus 7-14) No wonder Pharaoh hated him!
[line 29] Blackwall Basin: part of the old West India Docks on the Thames in East London.(right).
[line 30] China barque: a three-masted vessel with fore- and mainmasts square-rigged and mizen-mast fore-and-aft-rigged.
[line 35] sheet … line … brace Parts of the rigging of a saing vessel.
[line 36] its lead: where it led. In effect, its function.
[line 37] caulkyers: To caulk is to stop up the seams of a ship with oakum and pitch.
[line 42] Japhet … Shem … Ham: sons of Noah, the last traditionally the ancestor of the indigenous peoples of central and southern Africa.
[lines 46] Otherwise I perceive no change: Much the same sentiment as in Verse 6 of Poseidon’s Law: [D.H.]
the robust and Brass-bound Man he is not changed at all !
[line 48] hooker: applied deprecatively or fondly to a ship.
[D.M.]
©Donald Mackenzie 2019 All rights reserved