Poems (Kennedy)/Ships at Sea
Appearance
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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 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!
Has whispered my heart it was so;
Then what care I if the heavens be fair
Or the wide-winged tempests shall blow!