{"id":"01KG8AJS2XD4DS45M4K6MX7NN7","cid":"bafkreica6t33qgmthlj3ymb6doysuyiycaw45wxpop3g7y5d2442vvkdy4","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# CHAPTER XLV. PUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR.\n## Overview\nThis is a chapter from the novel [White-Jacket](arke:01KG8AJ89Z18FKVJV5H0488ZAZ) by Herman Melville. It is extracted from the file [white_jacket.txt](arke:01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY) and is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The chapter appears between [CHAPTER XLIV. A KNAVE IN OFFICE IN A MAN-OF-WAR.](arke:01KG8AJS32V8KWVR1XVNNS595G) and [CHAPTER XLVI. THE COMMODORE ON THE POOP, AND ONE OF “THE PEOPLE” UNDER THE HANDS OF THE SURGEON.](arke:01KG8AJS2XR4F65K8W27CASPYP).\n## Context\n[White-Jacket](arke:01KG8AJ89Z18FKVJV5H0488ZAZ) is a novel by Herman Melville, published in 1850. The novel is based on Melville's experiences serving in the United States Navy.\n## Contents\nIn this chapter, the narrator recounts an amusing incident involving young Lemsford, the gun-deck bard. Lemsford, seeking a safe place for his poetry manuscripts, had been storing them in the muzzle of a cannon. One day, the ship fires a salute, inadvertently launching Lemsford's \"Songs of the Sirens\" into the sea. Jack Chase, a character in the novel, jokingly suggests that this is the best way to publish poetry, by firing it \"right into 'em.\" Lemsford then launches into a tirade against the public and publishers, prompting a discussion about the difference between \"the public\" and \"the people.\"\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:52.062Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"CHAPTER XLV. PUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR.","end_line":7419,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:39.667Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"CHAPTER XLV. PUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR.","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":7355,"text":"CHAPTER XLV.\r\nPUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR.\r\n\r\n\r\nA day or two after our arrival in Rio, a rather amusing incident\r\noccurred to a particular acquaintance of mine, young Lemsford, the\r\ngun-deck bard.\r\n\r\nThe great guns of an armed ship have blocks of wood, called _tompions_,\r\npainted black, inserted in their muzzles, to keep out the spray of the\r\nsea. These tompions slip in and out very handily, like covers to butter\r\nfirkins.\r\n\r\nBy advice of a friend, Lemsford, alarmed for the fate of his box of\r\npoetry, had latterly made use of a particular gun on the main-deck, in\r\nthe tube of which he thrust his manuscripts, by simply crawling partly\r\nout of the porthole, removing the tompion, inserting his papers,\r\ntightly rolled, and making all snug again.\r\n\r\nBreakfast over, he and I were reclining in the main-top—where, by\r\npermission of my noble master, Jack Chase, I had invited him—when, of a\r\nsudden, we heard a cannonading. It was our own ship.\r\n\r\n“Ah!” said a top-man, “returning the shore salute they gave us\r\nyesterday.”\r\n\r\n“O Lord!” cried Lemsford, “my _Songs of the Sirens!_” and he ran down\r\nthe rigging to the batteries; but just as he touched the gun-deck, gun\r\nNo. 20—his literary strong-box—went off with a terrific report.\r\n\r\n“Well, my after-guard Virgil,” said Jack Chase to him, as he slowly\r\nreturned up the rigging, “did you get it? You need not answer; I see\r\nyou were too late. But never mind, my boy: no printer could do the\r\nbusiness for you better. That’s the way to publish, White-Jacket,”\r\nturning to me—“fire it right into ’em; every canto a twenty-four-pound\r\nshot; _hull_ the blockheads, whether they will or no. And mind you,\r\nLemsford, when your shot does the most execution, your hear the least\r\nfrom the foe. A killed man cannot even lisp.”\r\n\r\n“Glorious Jack!” cried Lemsford, running up and snatching him by the\r\nhand, “say that again, Jack! look me in the eyes. By all the Homers,\r\nJack, you have made my soul mount like a balloon! Jack, I’m a poor\r\ndevil of a poet. Not two months before I shipped aboard here, I\r\npublished a volume of poems, very aggressive on the world, Jack. Heaven\r\nknows what it cost me. I published it, Jack, and the cursed publisher\r\nsued me for damages; my friends looked sheepish; one or two who liked\r\nit were non-committal; and as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, they\r\nthought they had found out a fool. Blast them, Jack, what they call the\r\npublic is a monster, like the idol we saw in Owhyhee, with the head of\r\na jackass, the body of a baboon, and the tail of a scorpion!”\r\n\r\n“I don’t like that,” said Jack; “when I’m ashore, I myself am part of\r\nthe public.”\r\n\r\n“Your pardon, Jack; you are not, you are then a part of the people,\r\njust as you are aboard the frigate here. The public is one thing, Jack,\r\nand the people another.”\r\n\r\n“You are right,” said Jack; “right as this leg. Virgil, you are a\r\ntrump; you are a jewel, my boy. The public and the people! Ay, ay, my\r\nlads, let us hate the one and cleave to the other.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"CHAPTER XLV. PUBLISHING POETRY IN A MAN-OF-WAR."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJ89Z18FKVJV5H0488ZAZ","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AJS32V8KWVR1XVNNS595G","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AJS2XR4F65K8W27CASPYP","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:42.685Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:52.342Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}