Poems (Kennedy)/Ships at Sea

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

SHIPS AT SEA

FROM far beyond the wavering line
 Where the sky meets rock-a-by sea,
Somewhere and from some unknown port
 My ships are sailing home to me.

And this I know, for the God of all dreams
 Has whispered my heart it was so;
Then what care I if the heavens be fair
 Or the wide-winged tempests shall blow?

And one of my ships is a radiant Hope,
 And a rainbow arches the mast;
And one is a Memory, drifting away
 From the purple ports of the past.

But my treasure-ship is a ship of Prayer,
 And it's winged with a white, white sail,
And I know in my soul that the God of all dreams
 Will temper the tide and the gale;

And that some sweet day, from the silver mists
 Where the sky meets rock-a-by sea,
My straining eyes shall glimpse the sails
 Of my ships come home from sea.

And the radiant Hope shall bloom to a Joy,
 And the Memory shall lose its pain,
And the answered Prayer, transfigured with faith,
 Make of life a glory again.

And this do I know, for the God of all dreams
 Has whispered my heart it was so;
Then what care I if the heavens be fair
 Or the wide-winged tempests shall blow!