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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 6 (October 2, 1933)

Rotten Row

Rotten Row.

(Most harbours scattered over the seven seas have a last haven for ships which have passed from the sphere of usefulness. This haven, in the parlance of the sea is called Rotten Row. Although the following lines refer to the old ships in Wellington Harbour they are more or less applicable to most harbours of the world.)

Etched in light by the sunset's glow
Lie the rusting ranks of Rotten Row,
Where only the wailing seagulls go,
And the oily tide in its ebb and flow
Murmurs the story of Rotten Row.
Rotten Row, where the rusting hulls
Of ships which floated as light as gulls,
And battled the storm in their youthful pride,
Now swing at their mornings—side by side.
Passed is their day, as well they know,
But Romance remains in Rotten Row.
There's romance in rust and foreign mud,
In salt-grimed stacks which the tempest's scud
Has battered and spattered in many a “blow”—
Such are the treasures of Rotten Row.
Perchance at their moorings they meditate
On the China seas and the Golden Gate,
On the Northern Lights and the Arctic Snow,
And the shimmering heat of Borneo.
On the Seven Seas and the bright Pole star,
And the scent of the coast off Malabar.
Or fondly imagine they feel again
The battering comber—the beat of rain,
The reckless joy of a Biscay “blow,”
While they mutter together in Rotten Row.
Of skippers and crews and merchandise,
Of copra and coffee and coal and rice,
And the hundred times they crossed the “line”
In the days when they battled the biting brine.
And doubtless those ancients speak with pride
As they swing to the pull of the ebbing tide,
Of the manner they weathered an “old-man blow”
In the nineties, off Monte Video.
And tell of a gale in the Celebes,
In the days when they wandered the Seven Seas.
They're rusty and foul with green sea mould.
Their engines are dead, and their fires are cold,
And never again will they put to sea,
Unless on the ocean of Memory
They're sailing the seas which they used to know.—Ken Alexander.

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