James Princeton Gar Returns

In the Cavern of the Sea Nymphs

You read about this sort of thing all the time

in myths and fairytales. But I, James Princeton

Gar, stand here to tell you, son: I seen ‘em!

Twas in the Indian Ocean, when I for the Queen

captained a ship and crew of swarthy seamen

salty as the brine and wily as any wave. We

sailed from port in the calmest summer noon,

and yet by sunset Neptune was of a temper,

Zephyr drove the waves frothy, and clouds

dark as all the world’s sins, me own included,

rolled out like apocalypse across the sky,

complete with fire and hail from heaven!

My crew were stalwart, indeed I sees to that

meself. But that hellspawned storm turned

their livers yella and their eyes popped with

that brute look you get from all seals and mad

dogs. Three men had to feel my whip to move

them to the sails and keep them to their posts.

Hard sailing it was. Nine good sailors lost by

midnight. But still we rolled with it and prayed

to what gods each believes to hear him. And

when that devil’s fury passed, which pass it did,

as do all storms, me lad, keep that ever in mind,

it calmed to a sea placid as creation’s first morn,

and that was the more disturbin’! For how can

a man hope to find land with naught to fill

the sails and hie him ho? No. It was a fell calm

stinkin’ of perdition and the end of all things.

But James Princeton Gar be I, and I’ll not let

such thoughts be voiced aboard my vessel, be

it by god or man or e’en the Queen herself! No,

I spake to them seadogs like as if they was my own

sons. Said to them, “Listen now! All seas pass!

Storms rage and wane. Tides ebb and flow.

And so too do calms come and go!

So bolt some gin and then begin to clean

this scow to the fine vessel it be. Busy

hands have no time for dark thoughts!”

At my word they took me, not because I

be eloquent, nor more frightful than the sea,

but because they were good men with sense

enough to know the truth of what was told.

Thus we put our backs to the work, let unfold

what the fates planned. We scrubbed and cleared

storm wreckage and patched what needed it.

Then, of another sudden, a fiercer storm yet

came up out of nowhere and beat us bloody

with hail and rains driven like a flail upon our

skin—so severe it was it shredded the clothes from

our shoulders! What can a man do? Live!

That is what we did. We lived. We did all

we could to breathe from one wave t’ another!

And now a sudden calm washes us. And now

a sudden rendin’ of timbers. And now a cliff

from the mists unnoticed. And now men drown,

men swim, men rescue others. One moment

here, the next gone. And I, James Princeton Gar,

captain of that crew, went with my ship, down

to the shallows off a coast no map details.

Thinking myself drown, it came a shock

to wake in the cave of the Sea Nymphs.

Disbelief is all I thought left of myself

as I gazed in wonder at the fairest maids

eyes ever saw. It occurred to me that I

was the first in a century to find the fabled

maids of mer—but the tails on these damsels,

they had naught in common with fish, me lad,

I tell you true! I tell you true, they was beauties

the angels down from heaven would dive

to behold! And from that waking, my lad,

I cannot relate further, for a salty tale ‘tis.

David M Pitchford
30 April 2008