Related quotes: Grief for an absent lover,...

The Debtor Abroad

Grief for an absent lover, husband, friend,
Is barely felt before it comes to end:
A score of early consolations serve
To modify its mouth's dejected curve.
But woes of creditors when debtors flee
Forever swell the separating sea.
When standing on an alien shore you mark
The steady course of some intrepid bark,
How sweet to think a tear for you abides,
Not all unuseful, in the wave she rides!
That sighs for you commingle in the gale
Beneficently bellying her sail!

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Sail On, Sail On

Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark --
Where'er blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind.
Each wave that passes seems to say,
"Though death beneath our smile may be,
Less cold we are, less false than they,
Whose smiling wreck'd thy hopes and thee."

Sail on, sail on -- through endless space --
Through calm -- through tempest -- stop no more:
The stormiest sea's a resting-place
To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or -- if some desert land we meet,
Where never yet false-hearted men
Profaned a world, that else were sweet --
Then rest thee, bark, but not till then.

poem by Thomas Moore
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Sea-Shore

Every wave from the sea,
Running towards the shore,
As if to stay with it forever.
Returns all rejected,
Only more salty and miserable,
Happy to be so, though.
The sea tries yet again,
In the form of another wave,
A never ending hope of attraction,
And a continuous failure.

The shore not at fault either,
Luring the sea towards itself,
Without knowing the depth,
Or the sparkle of the water.
Couldn’t move an inch,
To walk with the sea forever,
A decision not made by choice.
Does not hold the sea to itself,
Neither does it let go,
Probably that’s what He wanted.

The sea running towards the shore,
Knowing it would be the end,
And sighs in the form of a breeze,
At the thought of the final touch,
Every dropp awaiting the end.
Trying and denying carries on,
Till the sea dries out,
The shore stays where it was,
Beside the grave of its only lover,
As lonely as it could be.

poem by Dhruv Dikshit
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To Lucasta, Going Beyond the Seas

If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone, -
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blust'ring wind or swallowing wave.

But I'll not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my sail,
Or pay a tear to 'suage
The foaming blue god's rage;
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.

Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated souls,
All time and space controls:
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.

So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i'th' skies,
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speak like spirits unconfined
In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.

poem by Richard Lovelace
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Sonnet XXXII. To Melancholy

Written on the banks of the Arun, Oct. 1785.
WHEN latest Autumn spreads her evening veil,
And the grey mists from these dim waves arise,
I love to listen to the hollow sighs,
Through the half-leafless wood that breathes the gale:
For at such hours the shadowy phantom, pale,
Oft seems to fleet before the poet's eyes;
Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies,
As of night wanderers, who their woes bewail
Here, by his native stream, at such an hour,
Pity's own Otway I methinks could meet,
And hear his deep sighs swell the sadden'd wind!
O Melancholy!--such thy magic power,
That to the soul these dreams are often sweet,
And sooth the pensive visionary mind!

poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Captive Pirate

THE captive pirate sate alone,
Musing over triumphs gone,
Gazing on the clear blue sky
From his dungeon window high.
Dreamingly he sate, and thought
Of battles he had seen and fought;
And fancy o'er him threw her spell.
He deemed he had not bid farewell
To the friends who loved him best:
O'er the white wave's snowy crest
Seems he now once more to sail,
Borne by the triumphant gale:
Cheerily the light bark bounds,
In his ears the music sounds
Of hoarsely mingling waves and voices,
And his inmost soul rejoices!

He gives the signal of command,
He waves-he drops-the lifted hand!
It was a sound of clashing steel-
Why starts he thus? what doth he feel?
The clanking of his iron chain
Hath made him prisoner again!
He groans, as memory round him brings
The shades of half-forgotten things.
His friends! his faithful friends!-a sigh
Bursts from that bosom swelling high.
His bark! his gallant bark!-a tear
Darkens the eye that knew not fear.
And another meaner name
Must lead his men to death or fame!
And another form must stand
(Captain of his mourning band)
On the deck he trod so well,
While his bark o'er ocean's swell
Is sailing far, far out at sea,
Where he never more may be!
Oh! to be away once more
From the dark and loathsome shore!
Oh! again the sound to hear
Of his ship's crew's hearty cheer!
Souls who by his side have stood,
Careless of their ebbing blood,

Wiped the death-dew from their brow,
And feebly smiled their truth to show!
Little does the Pirate deem
Freedom now were but a dream;
Little does the chieftain think
That his lost companions drink
Strugglingly by the salt sea wave,
Once their home, and now their grave!
And the bark from which they part,
(While his sad and heavy heart
Yearns to tread her gallant deck,)
Helpless lies, a heaving wreck!

And little will they deem, who roam
Hereafter in their floating home,
While their sunlit sail is spread,
That it gleams above the dead-
That the faithless wave rolls on
Calmly, as they were not gone,
While its depths warm hearts doth cover,
Whose beatings were untimely over!
And little will they deem, who stand
Safe upon the sea-girt land,
That to the stranger all it gave
Was-a prison and a grave!

That the ruin'd fortress towers
Number'd his despairing hours,
And beneath their careless tread,
Sleeps-the broken-hearted dead!

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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The Wanderer From The Fold

How few, of all the hearts that loved,
Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be moved
With such a sense of woe?

Too often thus, when left alone,
Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing tone
From thy strange history.

Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,
A glorious child again;
All virtues beaming from thine eyes
That ever honoured men:

Courage and truth, a generous breast
Where sinless sunshine lay:
A being whose very presence blest
Like gladsome summer-day.

O, fairly spread thy early sail,
And fresh, and pure, and free,
Was the first impulse of the gale
Which urged life's wave for thee!

Why did the pilot, too confiding,
Dream o'er that ocean's foam,
And trust in Pleasure's careless guiding
To bring his vessel home?

For well he knew what dangers frowned,
What mists would gather, dim;
What rocks and shelves, and sands lay round
Between his port and him.

The very brightness of the sun
The splendour of the main,
The wind which bore him wildly on
Should not have warned in vain.

An anxious gazer from the shore—
I marked the whitening wave,
And wept above thy fate the more
Because—I could not save.

It recks not now, when all is over:
But yet my heart will be
A mourner still, though friend and lover
Have both forgotten thee!

poem by Emily Jane Brontë
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London River

Half a score o' sailormen that want to sail once more,
Cruising round the waterside with the Peter at the fore!
Half a score o' sailormen the sea will never drown -
Seven days in open boats a-drifting up and down! -
Out to find another ship and sail from London Town!

Half a score o' sailormen broke and on the rocks,
Linking down Commercial Road, tramping round the Docks,
Half a score o' sailormen, torpedoed twice before,
Once was in the Channel chops, once was off the Nore,
Last was in the open sea five hundred mile from shore!

Half a score o' sailormen that want to sail again -
And her cargo's all aboard her, and it's blowing up for rain!
Half a score o' sailormen that won't come home to tea -
For she's dropping down the river with the Duster flying free -
Down the London River on the road to the open sea!

poem by Cicely Fox Smith
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Creditors have better memories than debtors.

quote by Benjamin Franklin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Wanderer from the Fold