We do not build these ships any more
In the shape that was so like the bluff-bowed
Rolling tar-colored quarry himself, so
Like his wooden kin or his corpse stiff
Under white sail, that in old whaling prints
You can recognize the bloody drama
At once: how brother has risen against
Brother. Prows, irons, methods nowadays
Are sharper; the game can be played out
At greater range, more safely behind steel,
Is cleaner and more swift. Whatever
It may have replaced, cunning has grown in
The hunter. Yet in the bowels of the craft
The same functions must be rendered, for
The victim is the same, and the prize, and it is
The same heart that knows its mark and kills.
Whaler
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