My favourite poems III: escape

Another poem, which everyone knows. If, like me, you are sitting for hours on a hard hospital chair, waiting for a bed to become available for your mother, the thought of being anywhere else at all is wonderful.
It also taught me how to use rhythm to paint a picture.
I do wonder, though, how a rowed ship owned by Nineveh (access Persian Gulf) can make it from Ophir (possibly Sri Lanka or Red sea port) to Palestine (Mediterranean) before the building of the Suez canal. This sort of thing worries me.

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

John Masefield