Loose Hips Sink Ships

This is one of John Donne's epigrams, basically a short, usually witty comment kind of like a pre-electricity Twitter post. Only with less advertising for your half-hour Comedy Central special or whatever project you're hawking this month. (I'm looking at you, Sarah Silverman.)





A Burnt ShipJohn 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.

Also, knowing this period of Donne's work, there's probably, about seven layers deep, a really gross and explicit sexual metaphor that he and his buddies could snicker at over a warm one down at the alehouse. He's kind of the smart jock everybody in school hates because his grades are a-okay but he also gets plenty of play with the ladies.