This line from Flecker's poem seemed to require a style of italic lettering, but rather different from anything I had designed previously. The main problem with carving a full italic is the long, tapering junctions in many of the letters. One solution is to break those letters at these junctions, while still designing shapes which are pleasing and legible. This is my second attempt to do this, which also gave the opportunity to play with the letters by extending some of them above and below the main lines of the text. This gives the lettering an informality which seemed to agree well with the old timber of the boat and lazy rhythm of the words.

The words are the first line of The Old Ships by James Elroy Flecker (1884-18915).