Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/27

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
MY FIRST SABBATH AT SEA.
23


Again that tuneful sound
   Swells o'er the watery plain;
How passing sweet are Zion's songs
   Amid the stranger-main:
Our vessel taught them to the winds
   Along her venturous way,
And bade the lawless billows hush
   In their tremendous play.

Throughout the broad expanse
   No living thing is seen,
Except the stormy petrel's wing,
   That flecks the blue serene;
Praise! Praise! methinks the hoariest surge
   Might learn that lesson well,
Which even the infant zephyr's breath
   To earth's frail flowers doth tell.

What though the tender thought
   Of loved ones far away
Steals lingering to the moistened eye,
   Mid prayer and chanted lay,