And soon their earings and their robans bend.
That task performed, they first the braces slack,
Then to the chesstree drag th’ unwilling tack,
And, while the lee clue-garnet’s lowered away,
Taught aft the sheet they tally, and belay.
Now to the north, from Afric’s burning shore,
A troop of porpoises their course explore;
In curling wreaths they gambol on the tide,
Now bound aloft, now down the billow glide:
Their tracks awhile the hoary waves retain,