Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3819/The New Noah's Ark
Or, a Word to the Children of England on the Importance of Sea-power.
[As a part of our campaign to capture Germany's trade, it has been suggested that Noah's Arks should in future be made in this country.]
Remove yon odious concern
That once outrode the mimic storm,
And deep in darkest shelves intern
Her captain and his pirate swarm:
Sweep, sweep, that Dreadnought from the seas
Of England's carpets, if you please,
And set no more by two and two
On Sabbath days her bestial crew,
That mask with peace the Prussian uniform.
I seem to see the War-Lord's lace
Bedeck that bosom mild and stout;
Athwart yon patriarchal face
The Kaiser-like moustaches sprout;
The wideawake becomes a helm,
The staff a sword to overwhelm,
Hypocrisy stands writ and cant
On yonder pale-blue elephant
Tusk-less (Maud did it when Mamma was out).
What makes he with a lilac dove
This Corsair desperate and daft?
Behold the conning tower above
The big stern chasers pointing aft!
This is not he that saved mankind
With pards and pigs from tempests blind,
But rather he that forged a flood,
And not of water but of blood,
And filled with worse than wolves his impious craft.
But come, we 'll build a larger boat
Of English breed, no Teuton shams,
Where sheltered animals shall float,
The lion couchant with the lambs:
See from the cabin's open door
What mild-faced dromedaries pour!
What Shems are these? what host arrives
Of gentler Japhets with their wives?
What antelopes? what un-Westphalian Hams?
And sometimes, should the pageant cloy,
Supposing Nurse has left the room,
We'll take again that outcast toy
From the deep cupboard's inmost gloom;
We'll shell that buccaneering barque
With the good guns of England's ark;
We'll chase it flying like a rat
For some fort-guarded Ararat,
And leave it flotsam for Jemima's broom.