The Once Over
By H. L. Phillips
Once gleaming beauty of the peaceful seas,
pristine and regal, born for soft, smooth ways.
A flashing symbol of great luxuries,
a yacht designed for tranquil lazy days.
And now a shattered thing with ghastly wounds,
a battered hulk upon the ocean floor.
A mild, great lady who went out of bounds
and died a gallant scrapper in a war!
The Alva! How her name shone in the news.
When all the world was free from slimy hate!
How oft we read of some gay, carefree cruise,
when no one dreamed of her impending fate!
She was the glamour girl of yachting magazines,
society observed her every move.
The newsreels played her up mid tropic scenes,
before she died, a scrapper "In the groove!"
To cruise a tranquil world In style deluxe,
ring with merry laughter and with song.
To know the duchesses and all the dukes,
and hear the rhumba dance-tunes linger long.
For this was she turned out a few years back,
the dream ship of a famous millionaire.
None sensed the lady would a wallop pack,
and go down fighting in a wolf-pack's lair.
To take her leisure on far waters blue,
to give some time to scientific aims.
This, too, the lady found the time to do.
But all such stuff was just like playing games,
compared to what her destiny decreed.
Bold sorties out where dark assassin lay,
long nights with death about on every watch.
Then frightful sounds where once war, oh, so gay,
and finally a bloody, spar-strewn patch.
The Alva, I remember her so well,
each winter by Miami's causeway fair.
I see her shining now, and hear her bell.
And note the whiteness of her flashing there,
immaculate, unscratched from stem to stern.
Aloof and with much hauteur in her eye,
yet waiting of for ol' Davie's dice to turn,
and call on her to battle and to die!
Now muck thru every stateroom leaves its mark,
and thru the portholes puzzled fishes play.
And there's a gaping wound thru which the sharks
have ample room to weave and twist and sway.
Here's to you, Alva, game, bold fighting lass,
a heroine, not just a glamour gal!
The men on glass fighting ships all lift a glass,
and say, "Here's to a sweetheart and pal”.
