^a red-tawnies: Tawny owls. Their nocturnal habits and eerie, easily imitated call, have led to a mythical association of the tawny owl with bad luck and death.

^d veronica’d: the interlacing (‘marrying’) of foam from each bow (which flow together midships) is seen as a veronica — originally a representation of the face of Christ as on the miraculous napkin with which Veronica wiped his brow, and later an emblem of this nature worn in a person’s cap as a pilgrim’s badge, also known as a vernicle.

^e Bends of paly light: a heraldic metaphor. A bend is straight stripe extending from one corner to the opposite edge of the shield; paly is when the field is divided by perpendicular lines into an even number of equal parts.

^g The rearing waves are the stone of her altar; even more immense waves curl over the ship, forming a dark apse or recess with an arched roof for her. The latter image is Homeric. The reference to Hopkins is inappropriate since Hopkins uses the word (as in ‘Windhover’) in its normal verbal sense, and DJ later saw that he was mistaken in making it.