The Sail
A single sail is bleaching brightly
Upon the waves caressing bland,
What seeks it in a stranger country?
Why did it leave its native strand?
When winds pipe high, load roar the billows
And with a crashing bends the mast,
It does not shun its luckless fortune,
Nor haste to port before the blast.
To-day the sea is clear as azure,
The sun shines gaily, faint the wind--
But it revolting, looks for tempest,
And dreams in storms its peace to find!
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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Related quotes
Sail
A lonely sail is flashing white
Amdist the blue mist of the sea!...
What does it seek in foreign lands?
What did it leave behind at home?..
Waves heave, wind whistles,
The mast, it bends and creaks...
Alas, it seeks not happiness
Nor happiness does it escape!
Below, a current azure bright,
Above, a golden ray of sun...
Rebellious, it seeks out a storm
As if in storms it could find peace!
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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Raging Fortune
O raging Fortune's withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low, O!
O raging Fortune's withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low, O!
My stem was fair, my bud was green,
My blossom sweet did blow, O!
The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild,
And made my branches grow, O!
But luckless Fortune's northern storms
Laid a' my blossoms low, O!
But luckless Fortune's northern storms
Laid a' my blossoms low, O!
poem by Robert Burns (1782)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Storm
Mark vi. 47-51.
Fear was within the tossing bark,
When stormy winds grew loud;
And waves came rolling high and dark,
And the tall mast was bowed.
And men stood breathless in their dread,
And baffled in their skill;
But One was there, who rose and said
To the wild sea, 'Be still!'
And the wind ceased - it ceased - that word
Pass'd through the gloomy sky;
The troubled billows knew their Lord,
And sank beneath His eye.
And silence settled on the deep,
And silence on the blast,
As when the righteous falls asleep,
When death's fierce throes are past.
Thou that didst rule the angry hour,
And tame the tempest's mood,
Oh! send Thy Spirit forth in power,
O'er our dark souls to brood!
Thou that didst bow the billows' pride,
Thy mandates to fulfil -
So speak to passion's raging tide,
Speak, and say, 'Peace, be still!'
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Old Retired Sea Captain
The old sea captain has sailed the seas
So long, that the waves at mirth,
Or the waves gone wild, and the crests of these,
Were as near playmates from birth:
He has loved both the storm and the calm, because
They seemed as his brothers twain,--
The flapping sail was his soul's applause,
And his rapture, the roaring main.
But now--like a battered hulk seems he,
Cast high on a foreign strand,
Though he feels 'in port,' as it need must be,
And the stay of a daughter's hand--
Yet ever the round of the listless hours,--
His pipe, in the languid air--
The grass, the trees, and the garden flowers,
And the strange earth everywhere!
And so betimes he is restless here
In this little inland town,
With never a wing in the atmosphere
But the wind-mill's, up and down;
His daughter's home in this peaceful vale,
And his grandchild 'twixt his knees--
But never the hail of a passing sail,
Nor the surge of the angry seas!
He quits his pipe, and he snaps its neck--
Would speak, though he coughs instead,
Then paces the porch like a quarter-deck
With a reeling mast o'erhead!
Ho! the old sea captain's cheeks glow warm,
And his eyes gleam grim and weird,
As he mutters about, like a thunder-storm,
In the cloud of his beetling beard.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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On Catching the Summer Breeze
A deep blue sky with light wisps of clouds,
A sail raised high up on the mast,
The rush of water along port side,
Skimming across the lake in your sailboat.
A sail raised high to catch the wind,
The breeze dies down, then becalmed.
Rustling of the sail begins,
The wind returns again.
Learn to duck, and not rock the boat.
Be careful, sometimes you fall in.
Listen and learn from those who know
For they fell in too, so long ago.
Over, and over, and over again,
Until you have mastered the art of the sail.
poem by Joe Wocoski
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Sun and Shadow
As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,
To the billows of foam-crested blue,
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,
Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray
As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,
The sun gleaming bright on her sail.
Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,--
Of breakers that whiten and roar;
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun
They see him who gaze from the shore!
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,
To the rock that is under his lee,
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,
O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.
Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves
Where life and its ventures are laid,
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves
May see us in sunshine or shade;
Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,
We'll trim our broad sail as before,
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,
Nor ask how we look from the shore!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Full Sail
Full sail full sail
Steady as you go
The wind will blow
Set sail at frisco bay
In a fog cold and gray
Clear sailing, day after day
Full sail full sail
Now the air is still
We lay adrift
Come upon a sea of trouble
Till the winds of change shift
My course is set
Theres no turning back
But theres no goin anywhere yet
Full sail full sail
Waiting for the wind to blow
The wind will blow
Does the silence of the sea
Sound warning of a storm ahead
Whispers of the breeze
Stir and disappear
To soft to hear
Whats in store for me
Adventure on the high seas
Put the childhood dream to the test
Find the measure of the man
Follow the sun heading west
Full sail
Steady as you go
Steady as you go
Full sail
Waiting for the wind to blow
The wind will blow
Hey full sail
Mmmm mmmmm
Hey full sail
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Three Verse Passages From A Prose Meditation
On verdurd trees ye silver blossoms grow
Whose leaves atop their perfect whiteness show
& faintly streak with stains of red below
The western breeze steales ore ye shady grove
to sigh near roses as insnard by love.
The waves pushed on by waves in mountains ly
Mixd with ye clouds ye Parent waters fly
& the cross'd winds roar hideous in ye sky
The east & west the south & north contend
While the vexd sea beneath is neithers friend
Above ye winds below the billows Jarr
& nature is become the seat of warr
Look how ye silent waters stealing by
With such smooth motions as deceive our eye
Returns ye pleasing pictures of ye sky
There shines ye sun with imitated rayes
her borrowd light ye paler moon displays
& ye cleare heavens wear an azure face
So lett thy temper due composure find
By all the modest rules that bound ye mind
That Whether fortune with a storm assails
Or Courts thy wishes with indulgent gales
No passion interpose a cloud between
But on thy bosome undisturbd within
May natures God & natures form [be seen]
poem by Thomas Parnell
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Olney Hymn 37: Temptation
The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to Thee I call, -
My fears are great, my strength is small.
O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guard and guide me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill,
Control the waves, - say, 'Peace! be still.'
Amidst the roaring of the sea
My soul still hangs her hope on Thee;
Thy constant love, thy faithful care,
Is all that saves me from despair.
Dangers of every shape and name
Attend the followers of the Lamb,
Who leave the world's deceitful shore,
And leave it to return no more.
Though tempest-toss'd and half a wreck,
My Saviour through the floods I seek;
Let neither winds nor stormy main
Force back my shatter'd bark again.
poem by William Cowper
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Through Time and Bitter Distance
Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine
May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war,
Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine,
That I have sought, reflected in the blue
Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes;
Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you,
But this is all my starving sight descries-
I
Far out at sea a sail
Bends to the freshening breeze,
Yields to the rising gale
That sweeps the seas;
II
Yields, as a bird wind-tossed,
To saltish waves that fling
Their spray, whose rime and frost
Like crystals cling
III
To canvas, mast and spar,
Till, gleaming like a gem,
She sinks beyond the far
Horizon's hem.
IV
Lost to my longing sight,
And nothing left to me
Save an oncoming night,-
An empty sea.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Old Ironsides
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar; --
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; --
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Temptation
The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to Thee I call, --
My fears are great, my strength is small.
O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guard and guide me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill,
Control the waves, -- say, "Peace! be still."
Amidst the roaring of the sea
My soul still hangs her hope on Thee;
Thy constant love, thy faithful care,
Is all that saves me from despair.
Dangers of every shape and name
Attend the followers of the Lamb,
Who leave the world's deceitful shore,
And leave it to return no more.
Though tempest-toss'd and half a wreck,
My Saviour through the floods I seek;
Let neither winds nor stormy main
Force back my shatter'd bark again.
poem by William Cowper
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A Peaceful Harbor
I have rode the high seas,
Through many violent storms.
Tidal waves crashing around
me,
Churning against my vessel.
The more I learn, the better
equipted I am,
To handle the storms of life.
My ship is resting in a peace-
ful harbor,
Returning to sea no more.
My peaceful harbor is you.
poem by Heather Burns
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The Helmsman
LIKE one who meets a staggering blow,
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past—
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?
His face is smitten with the wind,
His cheeks are chilled with rain;
And you were right, his hair is white,
But eyes are calm and heart is light
He does not fear the strife to-night,
He knows the roaring main.
Ho, Sailor! Will to-morrow bring
The hours of pleasant rest?
An answer low—“I do not know,
The thunders grow and far winds blow,
But storms may come and storms may go—
Our God, He judgeth best!”
Now you are right, brave mariner,
But we are not like you;
We, used to shore, our fates deplore,
And fear the more when waters roar;
So few amongst us look before,
Or stop to think that Heaven is o’er—
Ah! what you say is true.
And those who go abroad in ships,
Who seldom see the land,
But sail and stray so far away,
Should trust and pray, for are not they,
When Darkness blinds them on their way,
All guided by God’s hand?
But you are wrinkled, grey and worn;
’Tis time you dwelt in peace!
Your prime is past; we fail so fast;
You may not last through every blast,
And, oh, ’tis fearful to be cast
Amongst the smothering seas!
Is there no absent face to love
That you must live alone?
If faith did fade, if friends betrayed,
And turned, and staid resolves you’d made,
Ah, still ’tis pleasant to be laid
Where you at least are known.
The answer slides betwixt our words—
“The season shines and glooms
On ship and strand, on sea and land,
But life must go and Time is spanned,
As well you know when out you stand
With Death amongst the tombs!
“It matters not to one so old
Who mourns when Fate comes round,
And one may sleep down in the deep
As well as those beneath the heap
That fifty stormy years will sweep
And trample to the ground.”
Your speech is wise, brave mariner,
And we would let you be;
You speak with truth, you strive to soothe;
But, oh, the wrecks of Love and Truth,
What say you to our tears for Youth
And Beauty drowned at sea?
“Oh, talk not of the Beauty lost,
Since first these decks I trod
The hopeless stare on faces fair,
The streaming, bare, dishevelled hair,
The wild despair, the sinking—where,
Oh where, oh where?— My God!”
poem by Henry Kendall
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Lines Written on the Sea-Coast
SWIFT o'er the bounding deep the VESSEL glides,
Its streamers flutt'ring in the summer gales,
The lofty mast the breezy air derides,
As gaily o'er the glitt'ring surf she sails.
Now beats each gallant heart with innate joys,
Bright hopes and tender fears alternate vie,
Dear schemes of pure delight the mind employs,
And the soul glistens in the tearful eye.
The fond expecting Maid delighted stands
On the bleak summit of yon chalky bourn,
With waving handkerchief and lifted hands
She hails her darling Sailor's safe return.
Ill-fated Maid, ne'er shall thy gentle breast
The chaste reward of constant passion prove,
Ne'er shall that timid form again be press'd
In the dear bondage of unsullied love:
Stern Heaven forbidsthe dark o'erwhelming deep
Mocks the poor pilot's skill, and braves his sighs;
O'er the high deck the frothy billows sweep,
And the fierce tempest drowns the sea boy's cries.
The madd'ning ocean swells with furious roar,
See the devoted bark, the shatter'd mast,
The splitting hulk dash'd on the rocky shore,
Rolls 'midst the howlings of the direful blast.
O'er the vex'd deep the vivid sulphur flies,
The jarring elements their clamours blend,
The deaf'ning thunder roars along the skies,
And whistling winds from lurid clouds descend.
The lab'ring wreck, contending with the wave,
Mounts to the blast, or plunges in the main,
The trembling wretch suspended o'er his grave,
Clings to the tatter'd shrouds, the pouring rain
Chills his sad breast, methinks I see him weep,
I hear his fearful groan his mutter'd pray'r,
O, cease to mourn, behold the yawning deep
Where soon thy weary soul shall mock Despair,
Yes, soon thy aching heart shall rest in peace,
For in the arms of Death all human sorrows cease.
poem by Mary Darby Robinson
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A Descriptive Ode
Supposed to have been written under the Ruins of
Rufus's Castle, among the remains of the ancient
Church on the Isle of Portland.
CHAOTIC pile of barren stone,
That Nature's hurrying hand has thrown,
Half finish'd, from the troubled waves;
On whose rude brow the rifted tower
Has frown'd, through many a stormy hour,
On this drear site of tempest-beaten graves.
Sure Desolation loves to shroud
His giant form within the cloud
That hovers round thy rugged head;
And as through broken vaults beneath,
The future storms low-muttering breathe,
Hears the complaining voices of the dead.
Here marks the fiend with eager eyes,
Far out at sea the fogs arise
That dimly shade the beacon'd strand,
And listens the portentous roar
Of sullen waves, as on the shore,
Monotonous, they burst and tell the storm at hand.
Northward the demon's eyes are cast
O'er yonder bare and sterile waste,
Where, born to hew and heave the block,
Man, lost in ignorance and toil,
Becomes associate to the soil,
And his heart hardens like his native rock.
On the bleak hills, with flint o'erspread,
No blossoms rear the purple head;
No shrub perfumes the zephyrs' breath,
But o'er the cold and cheerless down
Grim desolation seems to frown,
Blasting the ungrateful soil with partial death.
Here the scathed trees with leaves half-dress'd,
Shade no soft songster's secret nest,
Whose spring-notes soothe the pensive ear;
But high the croaking cormorant flies,
And mews and hawks with clamorous cries
Tire the lone echoes of these caverns drear.
Perchance among the ruins grey
Some widow'd mourner loves to stray,
Marking the melancholy main
Where once, afar she could discern
O'er the white waves his sail return
Who never, never now, returns again!
On these lone tombs, by storms up-torn,
The hopeless wretch may lingering mourn,
Till from the ocean, rising red,
The misty moon with lurid ray
Lights her, reluctant, on her way,
To steep in tears her solitary bed.
Hence the dire spirit oft surveys
The ship, that to the western bays
With favouring gales pursues its course;
Then calls the vapour dark that blinds
The pilot,--calls the felon winds
That heave the billows with resistless force.
Commixing with the blotted skies,
High and more high the wild waves rise,
Till, as impetuous torrents urge,
Driven on yon fatal bank accursed
The vessel's massy timbers burst,
And the crew sinks beneath the infuriate surge.
There find the weak an early grave,
While youthful strength the whelming wave
Repels; and labouring for the land,
With shorten'd breath and upturn'd eyes,
Sees the rough shore above him rise,
Nor dreams that rapine meets him on the strand.
And are there then in human form
Monsters more savage than the storm,
Who from the gasping sufferer tear
The dripping weed?--who dare to reap
The inhuman harvest of the deep,
From half-drown'd victims whom the tempests spare?
Ah, yes! by avarice once possess'd,
No pity moves the rustic breast;
Callous he proves--as those who haply wait
Till I (a pilgrim weary worn)
To my own native land return,
With legal toils to drag me to my fate!
poem by Charlotte Smith
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California
On my way to sunny California
On my way to spend another sunny day
Water, water get yourself in the cool, clear, water
The sun shines brightly down on Penny's place
The sun shines brightly down on the bay
The air's so clean it'll just take your mind away
Take your mind away
Take your mind away
Have you ever been south of Monterey
Barrancas carve the coast line and the chaparral flows to the sea
'Neath waves of golden sunshine
And have you ever been north of Morro Bay
The south coast plows the sea
And the people there are of the breed
They don't need electricity
Water, water, cool cascades of clear, clear water
The sun dance final scene sets the hills ablaze.
Horizon edges quick up the mountain's way.
Have you ever been down Salinas way?
Where Steinbeck found the valley
And he wrote about it the way it was in his travelin's with Charley
And have you ever walked down through the sycamores
Where the farmhouse used to be
There the monarch's autumn journey ends
On a windswept cyprus tree
Water getwater get yourself in that
Get yourself in that get yourself in that cool, clear, water
The sun shines brightly down on Penny's place
Get yourself in that water
The air's so clean that it just takes your mind away
Take your mind away
Take your mind away
Have you ever been to a festival, the Big Sur congregation?
Where Country Joe will do his show
And he'd sing about liberty
And the people there in the open air, one big family.
Yeah the people there love to sing and share
Their new found liberty
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bantry Bay
On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay,
All ready to set sail, with a fresh and steady gale:
A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay,
And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail.
Three ships of war had we, and the great guns loaded all;
But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe.
The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball;
They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go.
On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock,
The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on--
Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock;
Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone.
The guns fired off amid the strife, but little hope had we;
The billows broke above the ship and left us all below.
The crew with one consent cried 'Bear further out to sea,'
But the waves obeyed no sailor's call, and we knew not where to go.
She foundered on a rock, while we clambered up the shrouds,
And staggered like a mountain drunk, wedged in the waves almost.
The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds,
And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost.
Have pity for poor mariners, ye landsmen, in a storm.
O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay.
All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm,
O think upon the whole ship's crew, all lost at Bantry Bay.
poem by John Clare
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Out of all the masts [Dintre sute de catarge]
Out of all the masts that sail
Far away when the sea raves
How many will be destroyed
By the winds and by the waves?
Out of all the birds that fly
Over lands with their wings
How many will be wiped out
By the waves and by the winds?
If you chase away your luck
Your ideals and your aims
You'll be followed everywhere
By the winds and by the waves.
And your thought remains unknown
When you gently sing your hymns
But is carried all around
By the waves and by the winds.
poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by Octavian Cocoş
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Afflicted, but not chrushed
When the storms of life are raging,
When the winds so angry roar,
I show no sign of tired or changing
I am the tall, strong lighthouse on the shore.
I do not care how mighty is the storm,
The night will always go away,
Inside my soul is peace, and warm,
Tomorrow is another day.
I am a rock, and I will never give up
on standing there, unmoved by the crashing waves,
I’ll get the beating, hold the pains in my huge cup,
dreaming of all the future coral caves.
"I am afflicted, but not crushed,
perplex, but not driven to despair,
struck down, but not destroyed."
I have my doubts, I have my fear,
but by His Grace, I sing and give another cheer!
poem by Marius Alexandru (3 January 2021)
Submitted by anonym
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