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POEMS FOR THE SEA.
While climbing high mid slippery shrouds
Our midnight path we take,
When the strongest mast like a reed is bow'd,
And the roughest timbers quake.
But do ye ever know the joy
That cheers our ocean-strife,
When o'er the waves, our gallant bark
Glides like a thing of life?
When gaily toward the wish'd-for port
With favoring wind we stand,
Or first the misty hill descry
Of our own native land?
Say you there's peril on the deep?
Well, so there is on land,
And often when you idly sleep,
Some tempter's close at hand.
Yet there's a Guiding Power aloft,
A pole-star mid the spheres,
An Ararat to save the ark
That o'er the deluge steers.
