The Hammock Papers: Signal.

03 August 2014

Signal.

Kent, ’Kathleen’ As She Was, 1923

Tom Deadlight

Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties,—
      Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain,
For I’ve received orders for to sail for the Deadman,
      But hope with the grand fleet to see you again.

I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys;
      I have hove my ship to, for to strike soundings clear—
The black scud a’flying; but, by God’s blessing, dam’ me,
      Right up the Channel for the Deadman I’ll steer.

I have worried through the waters that are call d the Doldrums,
      And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope—
Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads:—
      Flying Dutchman—odds bobbs—off the Cape of Good Hope!

But what’s this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt?
      The white goney’s wing?—how she rolls!—’t is the Cape!
Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none;
      And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape.

Dead reckoning, says Joe, it won’t do to go by;
      But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t’ other night.
Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman;
      And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right.

The signal!—it streams for the grand fleet to anchor.
      The captains—the trumpets—the hullabaloo!
Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters,
      For the Lord High Admiral, he’s squinting at you!

But give me my tot, Matt, before I roll over;
      Jock, let’s have your flipper, it’s good for to feel;
And don’t sew me up without baccy in mouth, boys,
      And don’t blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.
Herman Melville

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL