![\"\"](\"\/\/manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2011\/07\/220px-william-cowper-by-lemuel-francis-abbott.jpg\" "\\"220px-William_Cowper_by_Lemuel_Francis_Abbott\\"")
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I came across 18th century poet William Cowper in the Slate article “Why are William Cowper’s poems so witty?<\/A>”<\/p>\n For instance, this one (source<\/a>): TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE HALIBUT ON WHICH I DINED THIS DAY<\/p>\n WHERE hast thou floated, in what seas pursued There’s plenty to dive into here, vocabulary-wise, but how about this:<\/p>\n Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack’d The noble halibut, even as a tiny “embryo”, was able to cling to plants and thus outlive tempests, or storms, such as those that “wrung and racked” (that is, tossed about) “the joints of many a stout and gallant bark.”<\/p>\n Today, we often use stout<\/a> to mean “fat,” but it also means “strong of body; hearty; sturdy.”<\/p>\n Gallant<\/a> often means “chivalrous” (of a man towards a woman), but can also mean “brave, spirited, noble-minded.”<\/p>\n
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\nThy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn’d,
\nLost in th’ immensity of ocean’s waste?
\nRoar as they might, the overbearing winds
\nThat rock’d the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe\u201d
\nAnd in thy minikin and embryo state,
\nAttach’d to the firm leaf of some salt weed,
\nDidst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack’d
\nThe joints of many a stout and gallant bark,
\nAnd whelm’d them in the unexplor’d abyss.
\nIndebted to no magnet and no chart,
\nNor under guidance of the polar fire,
\nThou wast a voyager on many coasts,
\nGrazing at large in meadows submarine,
\nWhere flat Batavia just emerging peeps
\nAbove the brine,\u201dwhere Caledonia’s rocks
\nBeat back the surge,\u201dand where Hibernia shoots
\nHer wondrous causeway far into the main.
\n\u201dWherever thou hast fed, thou little thought’st,
\nAnd I not more, that I should feed on thee.
\nPeace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
\nTo him who sent thee! and success, as oft
\nAs it descends into the billowy gulph,
\nTo the same drag that caught thee!\u201dFare thee well!
\nThy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin
\nWould envy, could they know that thou wast doom’d
\nTo feed a bard, and to be prais’d in verse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe joints of many a stout and gallant bark<\/p><\/blockquote>\n