Poems for the Sea/My first Sabbath at Sea
MY FIRST SABBATH AT SEA
Swift gliding o'er the deep,
As woke the hallow'd day,
With snowy sails, and favoring gales,
Our ship pursued her way,—
When lo! a gush of music sweet,
Swelled from her heaving breast,
A holy voice of hymns, that seem'd
To lull the wave to rest.
For on the sheltered deck
Uprose a sacred rite,
The worship of old Ocean's King,
The Lord of power and might;
Who with a simple line of sand
Restrains its wrathful tide,
And lays his finger on its mane,
To quell its fiercest pride.
High words of solemn prayer
Each listening spirit stir,
And by the fair young babe knelt down
The wrinkled mariner,
On couch and mattrass rang'd around,
The sick forgot their grief,
And caught the lore of Heaven, as drinks
Its dew, the thirsting leaf.
Sad Erin's ardent sons
Up from the steerage came,
And in their warm response invoked
Jehovah's awful name;
And little children gathered near,
Blest in their guileless years,
Hands folded close, and lips apart,
And thoughts that move to tears.
Filled with the scene sublime,
The priestly heart grew bold,
To speak with eloquence of Him,
Who the great deep controlled;
And loftier was his youthful brow,
And deep his tuneful voice,
That warned the sinner to repent,
And bade the saint rejoice.
A spell was on the heart,
That bowed the proudest head,
Above us the eternal skies,
Beneath our feet the dead;
The dead who knew no burial rite,
Save storm, or battle cry,
Whose tombs are where the coral grows,
And the sea-monsters lie.
It is a blessed thing
In God's own courts to stand,
And hear the pealing organ swell,
And join the prayerful band;
Yet who in full dependence feels
That One alone can save,
Until his fleeting life he throws
Upon the troubled wave?
It is a blessed thing
To heed the Sabbath chime,
And on 'neath summer foliage walk
To keep the holy time;
Yet who hath all devoutly praised
The Hand his breath that kept,
Until the strong unpitying surge
Raged round him while he slept?
Earth the indulgent nurse,
With love her son doth guide,
His safety on her quiet breast
Begets an inborn pride;
But Ocean, king austere,
Doth mock his trusting gaze,
And try the fabric of the faith,
By which on Heaven he stays.
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,
Yet trust in a Redeemer's word,
And hopes that blossom free,
And hallowed memories cling around
This Sabbath on the sea.
