Portal:Poetry/Selected image/19

As in the Arsenal of the Venetians Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch To smear their unsound vessels o'er again, For sail they cannot; and instead thereof One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks The ribs of that which many a voyage has made; One hammers at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen

Inferno, Dante, verso 21, translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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