Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark,
Surround me! * * * *
So much the rather thou, celestial Light!
Shine inward, and the mind, through all her powers,
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse; that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight. —Milton.
“SHIPSHAPE and Bristol fashion,” a hundred years ago, more or less, was a phrase often heard on every sea plowed by American or English keels. Sailors everywhere applied it only to vessels in perfect condition, with bright paint, clean bottoms, spars well scraped, rigging taut, spare ropes neatly coiled, sails without mildew and of perfect set, pumps free, and all the thousand-and-one details that tell of ideal seamanship properly attended to. Those four words paid the highest tribute of the craft to the skill of the hardy mariners sailing from the tidy little port near the head of Narragansett Bay.