Pansies (Lawrence)/Ships in Bottles

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SHIPS IN BOTTLES
O ship in a bottlewith masts erect and spars all set and sails spreadhow you remind me of my London friends,O ships in bottles!
Little fleetsthat put to sea on certain evenings,frigates, barks and pinnaces, yawls ​all beautifully rigged and bottled upthat put to sea and boldly sink Armadasin a pub parlour, in literary London, on certain evenings.
O small flotilla of sorry soulssail on, over perilous seas of thought,cast your little anchors in ports of eternity,then weigh, and out to the infinities,skirting the poles of being and of not-being.
Ah, in that parlour of the London pubwhat dangers, ah what dangers!Caught between great icebergs of doubtthey are all but crushedlittle ships.Nipped upon the frozen floods of philosophic despairthey lie high and dryhigh and dry.Reeling in the black end of all beliefsthey sink.
Yet there they are, there they arelittle shipssafe inside their bottles!
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Whelmed in profundities of profound conversation,lost between great waves of ultimate ideasthey are—why there they are,safe inside their bottles!
Safer than in the arms of Jesus!Oh safer than anything else is a well-corked, glassy ego,and sounder than all insurance is a shiny mental conceit!
Sail, little ships in your glass bottlessafe from every contact,safe from all experience,safe, above all, from life!
And let the nodding tempests of verbosityweekly or twice-weekly whistle round your bottles.Spread your small sails immune, little ships!The storm is words, the bottles never break.
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