C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Author Unknown
Poems from Oriental Languages: Lines on the Launching of the Bash-tardah
Translation in Dublin University Magazine
“W
“Quick! ere the day be a moment older,
And launch the peerless Bash-tardah!
No nobler vessel sails, or bolder.”
Who hear the order must obey: they get the Proud One under way,
And along her dark-blue road she sweeps—
The Jewel of the World—behold her!
Walking the Bosphorus like a queen,
Unparalleled and uncontrolled, her
Green flag will centuries hence be seen
When kiosks and mosques and deereks molder.
Let Venice’s galleys menace now,—armed all and manned from poop to prow:
There goes the empress of the seas!
The Jewel of the World,—behold her!
Long as her gallant mainmast towers,
Long as the joyous waves uphold her,
So long her crew will dare the Giaours,
Will meet them shoulder up to shoulder.
Oh, the days of Selim shall return—again the Moslem’s breast shall burn,
Pondering what Marmora was of yore,
When rich in such— Our boast—behold her!
Cold is the Captain-Pasha’s lay;
But may his heart be even colder,
May his eyes and mouth be filled with clay,
And a winding-sheet be his enfolder,
When he shall see with heedless eye yon glorious pennon flout the sky!
It is her pennon—there she goes!
The Jewel of the World,—behold her!