the commodore in his cabin

  

"... in his grand, inaccessible cabin, the high and mighty commodore sat silent and stately, as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona." -- Herman Melville, White-Jacket; Or The World in a Man-of-War (1850) 

* * * 

How dreary must be a great Commodore
Alone in the cabin of a seventy-four. 

Be not alarmed! I make a rhyme but once a year; the idea came in that shape, and you must take it as it comes. -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, June 1851