There was once a brave collision
In Imaginary Bay,
When a steamer with precision
Clove its comfortable way
Through another, which had hospitably stood
To receive it, as a civil steamer should.
Then the people on the latter
Said they didn’t understand,
But they thought they’d better scatter
To the most adjacent land;
And the people on the former said: “That’s so—
You will find it sixty fathoms down below.”
Then the skipper of the vessel
Which was sinking in the brine
Said to t’other one: “I guess I’ll
Trouble you to drop a line.”
“Well, just give me your address,” was the reply,
“I am busy but I’ll write you by-and-by.”
Then the carpenter whose function
Was to mend the leaky boat
Said: “So wide is our disjunction
That we cannot longer float.
See the rats already leave us!” And so he
Up and hove his kit among them in the sea.
Though these incidents are cheerful
For a landsman to relate,
Yet the passengers were fearful
Of a melancholy fate;
For their knowledge was imperfect of the way
That the fishes have of breathing in the bay.
Some of them, who were accounted
Quite unmannerly and rude,
On the floating steamer mounted,
Saying: “Hope we don’t intrude.”
But the others, with politeness rare and fine,
Said their tickets were not good upon that line.
But the skipper of the wetter
Ship, the pilot and the mate—
Nothing ever yet was better
Than the way they met their fate;
For the perils that beset them in their climb
They encountered with alacrity sublime.
When the troubles all were ended
And the living safe in port
Invitation was extended
For them all to come to court.
Where the officers (they afterward explained)
Were with deferential kindness entertained.
Twenty Consuls, ten Inspectors,
Thirty Coroners were there,
Eighty-seven skilled objectors
And a Notary to swear;
And before that court the sailor-people sighed
And expounded how the passengers had lied.
The unanimous decision
Of that high and mighty court
Was “spontaneous collision”—
(I am quoting the report)
And the skippers were commended who had fed
To the lobsters each a bellyful of dead.