Adelaide and I

From 1887, we present 'Spinning a Yarn' by anonymous. Picture if you will, a group of sailors sitting around the capstan swapping stories and poems in those days of wooden ships and iron men.





'He took the anchor on his back,
And leaped into the main ;
Through foam and spray he clove [1] his way,
And sunk and rose again.

"'Through foam and spray a league [2] away,
The anchor stout he bore ;
Till, safe at last, he made it fast,
And warped [3] the ship ashore.'

"Such was the tale that was told to me
By that modest and truthful son of the sea ;
For he ain't like some of the swabs [4] I've seen,
As would go and lie to a poor marine."



[1] clove - past tense of cleave -to pierce or penetrate
[2] league - A unit of distance equal to 3.0 statute miles (4.8 kilometers)
[3] warped - nautical - to warp a ship or a boat into position
[4] swabs - slang for sailors aka swabbies
[5] capstan - An apparatus used for hoisting weights, consisting of a vertical [or horizontal] spool-shaped cylinder that is rotated manually or by machine and around which a cable is wound -- like the anchor chain