Laconic Pithiness

Everyone loves a good epigram. Especially when there's death on the high seas!

A Burnt Ship

John Donne

Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay ;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
    They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.