Very nice, Douglas. I don't think the great man would have approved, somehow, but I do.

When cherry blossom's all around,
Like summer snow upon the ground,
There's nothing, lad, that's half as fine
As shooting a poetic line.

A.E. Housman

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
 

…

I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated,

rising, the empty coffin floated near as the whirlpool dissipated.
My heart leapt as that box was overturned, disclosing panting heads: Queequeg and Starbuck, supporting Ahab! Queequeg’s harpoon had severed ropes that lately bound our Captain, upon Moby-Dick’s flank, nigh unto death.
Breathed utterance lacked depth to express our relief as several others of the Pequod’s crew broke surface, each grasping some spar or cask to buoy them; and we foregathered.
“Ah, men… men,” Ahab hoarsely spoke, “I sorely burdened ye. Will ye forgive my madness? –‘tis passed. If we live, let us no more vex the white whale, nor his kin; ‘tis cruel folly, and unblessed. Shall we make a pact?”
Rescued after three days adrift, we now quest afresh- campaigning till bloody whaling’s forsworn wholly. All ye mystified of Nantucket, hear how Ahab’s wondrous change was wrought! And we few only escaped together to tell thee.

A. E. Housman on G. M. Hopkin’s "Pied Beauty"
 

whoops ... posted in wrong place.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
There rose a rollicking royal cheer;
And they called for kegs of beer,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;”
She said, “Mine’s a vodka, Ace,”
The Lady of Shalott.

"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings.
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
Although my statue crumbles in decay
And sinks into disgraceful disrepair,
Believe me I was hot shit in my day."

And then I woke up and found it was all a dream.
- James Joyce Finnegans' Wake