Below is the original text. To be fair to systransoft.com, the makers of the translation software used at Babelfish and several other sites, the first "back and forth" translation that I attempted was disappointingly successful. I went from English to French, then back to English, and was surprised to see how readable the result was. Miffed, I decided to play mean, and make multiple translations. I
will not have my preconceptions mocked!
If-and the thing is wildly possible-the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against
the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line
"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."
In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other
writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the
strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously
inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic
course of simply explaining how it happened.
The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the
bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened,
when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the
ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about
it-- he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty
Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand-- so it generally ended in
its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder.
