Life, 1883-08-02 · page 10 of 16
Life — August 2, 1883 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Shark's Sonnet" and "The Ocean Steamer" This page presents two humorous Victorian-era literary pieces that anthropomorphize sea creatures for comic effect. **"The Shark's Sonnet"** parodies romantic poetry by casting a lovelorn shark pursuing a wooden figurehead ("fignum vitae"—wood) from a ship from Kennybunk, Maine. The shark travels globally, ignoring other sea creatures' invitations, driven by unrequited passion. The satire mocks overwrought romantic verses and their melodramatic declarations of devotion—here absurdly applied to a shark chasing an inanimate object. **"The Ocean Steamer—No. 5"** appears to be a companion piece where a female creature (likely another marine animal or personified ship element) waits for the male shark to notice her, while the shark remains fixated elsewhere. This reversal satirizes romantic frustration and jealousy, suggesting the futility of one-sided passion. Both pieces use nautical settings and animal characters to gently mock sentimental Victorian romance literature and human emotional melodrama through whimsical absurdity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE SHARK'S SONNET. ARGUMENT. A hopeless passion—Oh so mighty! For a maiden made of fignum vite. LE, traversed the Atlantic, I've skimmed the Carribee, The Good Hope shore I 've passed before, I've ploughed the Arctic sea. From port to port, from flood to flood, Wherever ship doth go, From India’s strands to Norseman’s lands, From Thames, to Hoang Ho. The star fish asks me why I roam, The conger queries why, And mermaids fair, stop work and stare As I go rushing by. The porpoise bids me stop and rest, The syrens call to me; But no! but no! I still must go, Nor linger in the sea. My eyes wax dim, my tail grows lax, ‘And feeble are my jaws, Yet I must roam, sans rest and home— For me, for me no pause. There is a bark from Kennybunk, ‘That sails, and sails away; And ’neath her sprit a maid doth sit That is more fair than day. There is no blush on Aer cheek, Its hue is of the snow; Her chiseled nose, like laundried clo’es, Is purest white also. One day—alas ! a fatal day, That bark from Kennybunk, a On starboard tack, ran ‘cross my track, THE OCEAN STEAMER—No. 5. "T was then my heart was sunk, WAITING FOR THE MALE. For, looking up, I saw the maid = —____ —— Right there, beneath the bow; But there she sits, that maiden cold, I felt the thing that poets sing, I cannot catch her eye, It came—I know not how. I wheel, I splash, I make a dash, In vain—she 'Il not espy. And to be ever at her side, I've journeyed with the bark, From shore to shore, vast oceans o'er, A servile suitor shark. Yes! There she sits, with eye intent Upon some distant spot, Oh, can it be, she looks to see A rival? Cruel lot! No other fish that skims the main, If she doth not relent, and gaze No trout that leaps the rill, Upon me as I flit, | Can me excel—nor swim as well— I'll say, with moan, go heat a stone; I’ve wondrous grace and skill. Go heat it red—I ‘Il swallow it ! comicbooks.com