I Must Go Down to the Sea, by John Masefield (1902)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

I Must Go Code in the C, by Tim Davis (2008)

I must go code in the C again, to the lonely C and VI,
And all I ask is a Linux box and a mouse to steer her by,
And the while's break and the if-then and the valgrind's shaking,
And a dash O so the C's fast and a switch case breaking.

I must go code in the C again, for the call of recursive code
Is a wild call and a clear call that runs and won't be slowed;
And all I ask is a tall latte with the white foam frothing,
And no flung err and no blown stack, and the C goes flying.

I must go code in the C again, to the lonely code frontier,
Where no goto's in the while's way, where the logic is sharp and clear;
And all I ask is a #define from a fellow C-programmer,
And quiet sleep when a clean doc's in the LaTeX grammar.

 

 

"I Must Go Code in the C Again" is Copyright 2008, Tim Davis. Please don't copy-and-paste or hot-link this poem without permission; link to this page instead: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~davis/Poetry/C.html

Glossary:

If you like this poem, you can find more poems at Horror Matrices and Other Mathematical Poetry. Click here for an index of my serious poetry.