I am inclined to agree good doctor

With you about this Mina Loy.

Her mind sails on ill-fated winds

As she rejects womanly joy.

 

Were she aboard my ship then,

When death and life-in-death claimed

The lives of my mates by chance

She’d wish that at home she stayed.

 

One woman I met on my voyage

And she cursed my unending life.

Mina Loy be no different in mine eye.

Say men not masculine and ye no wife.

 

The sea be no place for a dame.

Months with none but barnacled sea-dogs.

Wormy bread and mildewed boards.

Swab the deck, furl the sail, and be flogged!

 

Man be not masculine indeed!

Accost ye a limey mariner if dared

But beware when the cutlass swings!

Then you’ll wish such bold words were spared.

 

I concur their present careers are best,

A wise doctor indeed you must be.

And a conformist, surely thou art not,

My glitt’ring eye perceives adventure in thee.

 

But politics interest a mariner little.

Laws of the land oft are lost at sea.

Let society form and reform if it be best.

Sun and moon must take their turn at lee.

 

Though this feminist may think twice

Of promiscuity even in jest.

Many lonely seamen would be o’erjoyed

to hear a mew in their crow’s nest.

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