Song from the Ship
To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort,
And unseen Mermaids' pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.
To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark
Shall billowy cleave its sunny way,
And with its shadow, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Tritons' azure day,
Like mighty eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height.
The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,
The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!
poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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To Sea! To Sea!
TO sea, to sea! The calm is o'er;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cow snorts,
And unseen mermaids' pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er.
To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark
Shall billowy cleave its sunny way,
And with its shadow, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Tritons' azure day,
Like mighty eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height.
The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,
The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!
poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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To ---- VII
Upon the sea of life,
Outspread thy spirit's sails; --
Go in thy genius forth, and breast
Its billows and its gales.
Weigh anchor and depart --
Why linger on the shore?
Seize helm and guide thy spirit's bark
These untried waters o'er.
Dread only the dead calm,
Heed not the sky's dark frown;
And if to shipwreck thou art doomed,
Go in the tempest down.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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She Took The Wind From His Sails
Outer banks of North Carolina
Lies a sleepy harbor town
Generations of old sailors
Dropped their sails and settled down
Sam he is a young seafarer
Grandson of a sailmaker's daughter
Today he's gonna take her hand
Chorus:
Calm waters
Wish them well
His ship's come in
She's put the wind in his sails
Catherine is a canvas painter
Paints the sun and sand and sea
Lately she's been painting a portrait
Sammy is a dad to be
Chorus
January brought the fever
Sam was right there by her side
Doctor told him son I'm sorry
But Catherine needs your prayers tonight
Morning light brought Sam a daughter
Fever took his better half
Sam gave Catherine to the water
As he held their baby to his chest
Calm waters
Wished him well
His ship came in
But she took the wind from his sails
His ship came in
But she took the wind from his sails
song performed by by George Strait
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Will Sail Tomorrow
THE good ship lies in the crowded dock,
Fair as a statue, firm as a rock:
Her tall masts piercing the still blue air,
Her funnel glittering white and bare,
Whence the long soft line of vapory smoke
Betwixt sky and sea like a vision broke,
Or slowly o'er the horizon curled
Like a lost hope fled to the other world:
She sails to-morrow,--
Sails to-morrow.
Out steps the captain, busy and grave,
With his sailor's footfall, quick and brave,
His hundred thoughts and his thousand cares,
And his steady eye that all things dares:
Though a little smile o'er the kind face dawns
On the loving brute that leaps and fawns,
And a little shadow comes and goes,
As if heart and fancy fled--where, who knows:
He sails to-morrow:
Sails to-morrow.
To-morrow the serried line of ships
Will quick close after her as she slips
Into the unknown deep once more:
To-morrow, to-morrow, some on shore
With straining eyes shall desperate yearn--
'This is not parting? return--return!'
Peace, wild-wrung hands! hush, sobbing breath!
Love keepeth its own through life and death;
Though she sails to-morrow--
Sails to-morrow.
Sail, stately ship; down Southampton water
Gliding fair as old Nereus' daughter:
Christian ship that for burthen bears
Christians, speeded by Christian prayers;
All kinds of angels follow her track!
Pitiful God, bring the good ship back!
All the souls in her forever keep
Thine, living or dying, awake or asleep:
Then sail to-morrow!
Ship, sail to-morrow!
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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I dread the calm
I dread the calm in the morning of a mourn without a sound
It is a calm that comes to foster a greater grief
It is a calm light of dusk before ever dew was falling from leaves
It is a calm sinking in calm pattering to the ground
I fear the calm and scudding winds in the high wold
And on the dews the drench the gorse
And all the silvery gossamer
Shaken into gilded gold
Is it calm and still in the dusky light over great plains
That sweeps late and swiftly in autumn bowers
Of secluded farms and solitary towers
To merge with the bounding and the saint
Is it calm on the vast sea under the spangled silver sleep
The waves that sway in colossus to lull themselves to rest
And the dead calm in the deepening breast
Which heaves with the heaving deep
Yet calm is the mute peace in the meadow’s air
The forest gloom with loom of leaves that redden to fall
And in my chest if calm can ever dwell at all
If any calm is there, it is the calm of despair
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After While. A Poem Of Faith
I THINK that though the clouds be dark,
That though the waves dash o'er the bark.
Yet after while the light will come,
And in calm waters safe at home
The bark will anchor.
Weep not, my sad-eyed, gray-robed maid.
Because your fairest blossoms fade,
That sorrow still o'erruns your cup,
And even though you root them up,
The weeds grow ranker.
For after while your tears shall cease,
And sorrow shall give way to peace;
The flowers shall bloom, the weeds shall die,
And in that faith seen, by and by
Thy woes shall perish.
Smile at old Fortune's adverse tide,
Smile when the scoffers sneer and chide.
Oh, not for you the gems that pale,
And not for you the flowers that fail;
Let this thought cherish:
That after while the clouds will part,
And then with joy the waiting heart
Shall feel the light come stealing in,
That drives away the cloud of sin
And breaks its power.
And you shall burst your chrysalis,
And wing away to realms of bliss,
Untrammelled, pure, divinely free,
Above all earth's anxiety
From that same hour.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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A Poem Of Faith
I think that though the clouds be dark,
That though the waves dash o'er the bark,
Yet after while the light will come,
And in calm waters safe at home
The bark will anchor.
Weep not, my sad-eyed, gray-robed maid,
Because your fairest blossoms fade,
That sorrow still o'erruns your cup,
And even though you root them up,
The weeds grow ranker.
For after while your tears shall cease,
And sorrow shall give way to peace;
The flowers shall bloom, the weeds shall die,
And in that faith seen, by and by
Thy woes shall perish.
Smile at old Fortune's adverse tide,
Smile when the scoffers sneer and chide.
Oh, not for you the gems that pale,
And not for you the flowers that fail;
Let this thought cherish:
That after while the clouds will part,
And then with joy the waiting heart
Shall feel the light come stealing in,
That drives away the cloud of sin
And breaks its power.
And you shall burst your chrysalis,
And wing away to realms of bliss,
Untrammelled, pure, divinely free,
Above all earth's anxiety
From that same hour.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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In Cabin'd Ships At Sea
IN cabin'd ships, at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves--the large imperious
waves--In such,
Or some lone bark, buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under
many a star at night,
By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land,
be read,
In full rapport at last.
Here are our thoughts--voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be
said; 10
The sky o'erarches here--we feel the undulating deck beneath our
feet,
We feel the long pulsation--ebb and flow of endless motion;
The tones of unseen mystery--the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world--the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy
rhythm,
The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim, are all here,
And this is Ocean's poem.
Then falter not, O book! fulfil your destiny!
You, not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too, as a lone bark, cleaving the ether--purpos'd I know
not whither--yet ever full of faith, 20
Consort to every ship that sails--sail you!
Bear forth to them, folded, my love--(Dear mariners! for you I fold
it here, in every leaf;)
Speed on, my Book! spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart
the imperious waves!
Chant on--sail on--bear o'er the boundless blue, from me, to every
shore,
This song for mariners and all their ships.
poem by Walt Whitman
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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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A Dream Of Death
WHERE shall we sail to-day?'--Thus said, methought,
A voice that only could be heard in dreams:
And on we glided without mast or oar,
A wondrous boat upon a wondrous sea.
Sudden, the shore curved inward to a bay,
Broad, calm, with gorgeous sea-weeds waving slow
Beneath the water, like rich thoughts that stir
In the mysterious deep of poets' hearts.
So still, so fair, so rosy in the dawn
Lay that bright bay: yet something seemed to breath,
Or in the air, or from the whispering waves,
Or from that voice, as near as one's own soul,
'There was a wreck last night.' A wreck? then where
The ship, the crew?--The all-entombing sea
On which is writ nor name nor chronicle
Laid itself o'er them with smooth crystal smile.
'Yet was the wreck last night.'. And gazing down
Deep down below the surface, we were ware
Of ghastly faces with their open eyes
Uplooking to the dawn they could not see.
One moved with moving sea-weeds: one lay prone,
The tinted fishes gliding o'er his breast;
One, caught by floating hair, rocked quietly
Upon his reedy cradle, like a child.
'The wreck has been'--said the melodious voice,
'Yet all is peace. The dead, that, while we slept,
Struggled for life, now sleep and fear no storms:
O'er them let us not weep when heaven smiles.'
So we sailed on above the diamond sands,
Bright sea-flowers, and white faces stony calm,
Till the waves bore us to the open main,
And the great sun arose upon the world.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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I Am Calm In The Pain
I AM CALM IN THE PAIN
I am calm in the pain,
And calm in the rejection,
And calm through the insult,
And calm through the anger,
And calm calm calm,
Though I feel so deeply
How I have failed
I am calm
Very calm
So calm
Until suddenly
In the middle of the morning prayer
I begin to cry to God
Cry with a terrible crying
And then when the prayer done
Calm calm calm calm calm.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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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The Dreamer on the Sea-shore
What are the dreams of him who may sleep
Where the solemn voice of the troubled deep
Steals on the wind with a sullen roar,
And the waters foam along the shore?
Who shelter'd lies in some calm retreat,
And hears the music of waves at his feet?
He sees not the sail that passes on
O'er the sunny fields of the sea, alone,
The farthest point that gleams on the sight,
A vanishing speck of glittering light.
He sees not the spray that, spreading wide,
Throws its lines of snow on the dark green tide;
Or the billows rushing with crests of foam
As they strove which first should reach their home—
Their home! What home has the restless main,
Which only arrives to return again,
Like the wand'rer she bears on her stormy breast,
Who seeks in vain for a place of rest.
Lo! His visions bear him along
To rocks that have heard the mermaid's song:
Or, borne on the surface of some dark surge,
Unharm'd he lies, while they onward urge
Their rapid course, and waft him away
To islands half hid 'midst the shadowy spray,
Where trees wave their boughs in the perfum'd gale,
And bid the wave-borne stranger hail;
Where birds are flitting like gems in the sun,
And streams over emerald meadows run,
That whisper in melody as they glide
To the flowers that blush along their side.
Sorrow ne'er came to that blissful shore,
For no mortal has entered that isle before:
There the Halcyon waits on the sparkling strand
Till the bark of her lover the Nautilus land;
She spreads her purple wings to the air,
And she sees his fragile vessel there—
She sees him float on the summer sea,
Where no breath but the sigh of his love may be.
The dreamer leaps towards that smiling shore—
When, lo! the vision is there no more!
Its trees, its flowers, its birds are gone—
A waste of waters is spread alone.
Plunged in the tide, he struggles amain—
High they pour, and he strives in vain:
He sinks—the billows close over his head,
He shrieks—'tis over—the dream is fled;
Secure he lies in his calm retreat,
And the idle waters still rave at his feet.
poem by Louisa Stuart Costello
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Pastel poem [Pastel]
At sunset, from beyond the peaks,
Red blinks at dusk in silence glow
They break in small and shining streaks,
Which into shaded Danube flow.
The murky waves bury them all
And under osiers downstream,
On water hardly shake and crawl
Like orange peel, or so they seem.
Down there, above the forest, soon,
Where shrubberies are dark and wet,
Rises the handsome crescent moon
And sparkles from a minaret.
And, as if painted with this goal,
The island casts its shadow long,
Cut from the world, playing the role
Of a medieval castle, strong.
Looks like a ship charmed near the shore
Which anchored at the mountains' feet,
A wonder dreamed and waited for
By the old Danube's water sheet!
In the clear nights, calm, half asleep,
It waited for the morning bright,
To get out of the water deep
And come to surface in the light
A floating garden, purest one,
With trees and birds that sing in tune,
With flowers laughing at the sun,
But trembling scared under the moon.
poem by George Topîrceanu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by anonym
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From The Greek Of Moschus
Tan ala tan glaukan otan onemos atrema Balle--k.t.l.
When winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind.—But when the roar
Of Ocean’s gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of Earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen.--But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook’s murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Water Is Wide
The Water is Wide" is a traditional folk song. The girls have been
performing it now and then for years and years. I've been lucky
enough to see Mary-Chapin Carpenter add a beautiful third part to the
harmony on a few occasions.
The Water is Wide.
The water is wide, I can't cross o'er
And neither I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row - my love and I
Now love is gentle, and love is kind
The sweetest flower when first it's new
But love grows old, and waxes cold
And fades away like morning dew
There is a ship, she sails the sea
She's loaded deep as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not how I sink or swim
The water is wide, I can't cross o'er
And neither I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row - my love and I
And both shall row - my love and I
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Forgotten, Fantasy.
What happens to a Fantasy Forgotten?
Does it surface again
Like driftwood in the sea?
Or sink like an anchor -
And then break free
Does it boom like waves crashing?
Or lie silent on a calm night -
Like a hummingbird's wing?
Maybe it just lingers
Like seaweed on the floor.
Or does it wash up, on the lonely sea-shore?
poem by Simba Schmidt
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He was
He was an anchor in the light,
He was my happiness.
And when the blue sea dew from his sail-wings
He was the song of my unknown things;
The song of all that the wind has seen and felt.
The song of lives that we would never live;
The song of the loves that we would never love
He was my ship of dreams.
poem by Tina Angel
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Voyage Of The Good Ship Union
1862
'T is midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's cry;
Before the gale, with tattered sail,
A ship goes plunging by.
What name? Where bound?--The rocks around
Repeat the loud halloo.
--The good ship Union, Southward bound:
God help her and her crew!
And is the old flag flying still
That o'er your fathers flew,
With bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?
--Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!
Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?
--O landsman, there are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
--Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that wreck your reeling deck
Will leave me naught to save!
O landsman, art thou false or true?
What sign hast thou to show?
--The crimson stains from loyal veins
That hold my heart-blood's flow
--Enough! what more shall honor claim?
I know the sacred sign;
Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!
The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape
Lies low along her lee,
Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.
No treason here! it cost too dear
To win this barren realm
And true and free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm!
Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay
No rebel cruiser scars;
Her waters feel no pirate's keel
That flaunts the fallen stars!
--But watch the light on yonder height,--
Ay, pilot, have a care!
Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud
The capes of Delaware!
Say, pilot, what this fort may be,
Whose sentinels look down
From moated walls that show the sea
Their deep embrasures' frown?
The Rebel host claims all the coast,
But these are friends, we know,
Whose footprints spoil the 'sacred soil,'
And this is?--Fort Monroe!
The breakers roar,--how bears the shore?
--The traitorous wreckers' hands
Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays
Along the Hatteras sands.
--Ha! say not so! I see its glow!
Again the shoals display
The beacon light that shines by night,
The Union Stars by day!
The good ship flies to milder skies,
The wave more gently flows,
The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas
The breath of Beaufort's rose.
What fold is this the sweet winds kiss,
Fair-striped and many-starred,
Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls,
The twins of Beauregard?
What! heard you not Port Royal's doom?
How the black war-ships came
And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom
To redder wreaths of flame?
How from Rebellion's broken reed
We saw his emblem fall,
As soon his cursed poison-weed
Shall drop from Sumter's wall?
On! on! Pulaski's iron hail
Falls harmless on Tybee!
The good ship feels the freshening gales,
She strikes the open sea;
She rounds the point, she threads the keys
That guard the Land of Flowers,
And rides at last where firm and fast
Her own Gibraltar towers!
The good ship Union's voyage is o'er,
At anchor safe she swings,
And loud and clear with cheer on cheer
Her joyous welcome rings:
Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave,
It thunders on the shore,--
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation, evermore!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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