‘The Last Voyage of Barnaby Bear’: A Poem by Tashvi Reddy

The Last Voyage of Barnaby Bear

When first the winter twilight dimmed the pane
And rain beat softly on the nursery wall,
I spread a blanket like a royal train
Along my shoulders at adventure’s call.
My bed became a ship beneath full sail,
Its wooden posts rose tall as masts to me.
And shadows cast upon the moonlit veil
Were distant islands scattered among the sea.

My faithful Barnaby stood at my side,
A weathered bear of venerable years
Whose tawny coat (though threadbare) still supplied
A captain comfort through his doubts and fears.
He wore a blue ribbon withered with age,
Yet in my eyes no admiral could compare;
The wisest mariner to tread a stage
Of tossing decks was surely Barnaby Bear.

We sailed through waters dark as polished glass,
Past reefs of books and vast mountains of quilts,
Where monstrous whales of cloud were seen to pass
Far above the foam imagination built.
The wind sang loudly through the chamber door
While floorboards groaned like timbers strained from sea—
Every creak this old house gave became a
Tall tale of distant ports and mysteries.

But from the east—alas!—there came a cry:
A rival pirate vessel hove in sight!
Its sable banner black against the sky
With lanterns gleaming red within the night.
A fleet of rogues approached our gallant bark
To seize our fortunes and wealth we had won;
Their captain’s golden tooth flashed in the dark
(A villain, surely, if ever there was one!)

Then Barnaby stepped forward without fear.
“Stand fast!” he cried, though none but I could hear.
So our crew stood firm as the foe drew near—
The hour of reckoning was plainly here!
We loosed the cannons fashioned from young dreams,
Their volleys shook the ocean to its floor;
Bright lightning flashed—or so at least it seemed—
As cushions flew and struck from shore to shore.

The battle raged until the moon rode high,
When scuffs marked our deck and their sail half-mast.
Now our rivals turned trembling round to fly,
Their vaunted triumph foundered at the last!
Three ringing cheers arose from every hand
And dear Barnaby received victor’s praise—
No knight returning safely to the land
Was hailed more loudly in the olden days.
Then came the feast—we gathered by the mast
And raised mugs of grey grog in triumph there.
The storm was gone, the danger now was past,
And peaceful silence settled everywhere.

But soon I saw beneath the lantern’s light
The mug was only painted tin, not gold;
The mast a bedpost standing plain in sight
And the sea a quilt against evening’s cold.
Fellow pirates faded with the fire
And distant islands vanished one by one.
My mighty ship retired from its empire,
Its voyages and victories now done.
And Barnaby—whose deeds were sung so grand—
Was once again a bear beside my bed.

Yet somehow neither of us felt unmanned
By all the splendid falsehoods we had led.
For cares beyond our nursery had not come,
Nor years that teach the heart to count its cost.
No grief had yet appeared upon the horizon.
No cherished thing had been wholly lost.
Our world was wide and every humble room
Could hold an ocean, if one wished it so.
And all tomorrows bloomed without a gloom,
Like winds that fill a sail and bid it go.

I sometimes think back to that grand night—
How rich we were despite our modest store!
A blanket cape could make a captain bright,
And faithful bears could be commodores.
And though those seas existed only then
Within young child’s untroubled realm of play,
Their freedom seems more precious now than when
We sailed them, never dreaming they’d decay.

Tashvi Reddy is a rising senior attending Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts. She is a published children’s book author.