A wet sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,

And bends the gallant mast.

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While like the eagle free

Away the good ship flies, and leaves

Old England on the lee.

Allan Cunningham (1785-1842): A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.

Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,

Ready with every nod to tumble down.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

The lightning and the gale!

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894): Old Ironsides.

His spear, to equal which the tallest pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast

Of some great ammiral were but a wand,

He walk'd with to support uneasy steps

Over the burning marle.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 292.