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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  The Launching of the Bashtardah

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.

Turkey in Europe, and the Principalities: Bosphorus (Straits of Constantinople)

The Launching of the Bashtardah

By Anonymous

“WEIGH anchor!” cried the Padishah,

“Quick! ere the day be a moment older,

And launch the peerless Bashtardah!

No nobler vessel sails or bolder.”

Who hear the order must obey: they get the proud one under weigh,

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 moulder.

Let Venice 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;

O, 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!