HERVÉ RIEL.
119
"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they:
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,
Shall the 'Formidable' here, with her twelve and eighty guns
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside?
Now 't is slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring! Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,
Shall the 'Formidable' here, with her twelve and eighty guns
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside?
Now 't is slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring! Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"
