Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

It is not surprising that he should have been interested as well in the rude songs of the British sailors, which he heard on crossing the ocean. He was mightily amused at their simple refrain:

Haul in the bowlina, long-tailed bowlina,
Haul in the bowlina Kitty, O, my darlina.

“That rude couplet,” he said, “contains all the original elements of poetry. Firstly, the authropomorphic element; the sailor imagines his bowline as if it had life. Secondly, the humorous element, for the bowline is all tail. Thirdly, the reflective element; the monotonous motion makes him think of home,--of his wife or sweetheart,--and he ends the second line with ‘Kitty, O, my darlina.’ I like such primitive verses much better than the ‘Pike County Ballads,’ a mixture of sentiment and profanity.”

Then he went on to say: “I want my children, when they grow up, to read the classics. My boy will go to college, of course; and he will translate Homer and Virgil, and Horace,--I think very highly of Horace; but the literal meaning is a different thing from understanding the poetry. Then my daughters will learn French and German, and I shall expect them to read Schiller and Goethe, Moliere and Racine, ”