Page:Poems .. (IA poems00lani).pdf/139

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HOW LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL.
89

II.
THE SHIP OF EARTH.

"Thou Ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and Sex aboard,
And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold,
I fear thee, O! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword
At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold!

"The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky,
But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal red.
A pilot, God, a pilot! for the helm is left awry,
And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead!"

Prattville, Alabama, 1868.

III.
HOW LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL.

"To heal his heart of long-time pain
One day Prince Love for to travel was fain
With Ministers Mind and Sense.
'Now what to thee most strange may be?'
Quoth Mind and Sense. 'All things above,
One curious thing I first would see—
Hell,' quoth Love.

"Then Mind rode in and Sense rode out:
They searched the ways of man about.
First frightfully groaneth Sense.