Poems for the Sea/Oracle for Seamen
ORACLE FOR SEAMEN.
[It is a fable of heathen mythology, that the ship Argo was built of oaks from the sacred groves of Dodonia, which were endowed with the gift of prophecy; so that the masts and timbers gave oracular advice to the Argonautic adventurers, and saved them from many threatening calamities.]
Dodonian Oaks were those, ye say
That warn'd the sailor on his way,
When in old time, with peril fraught.
The Argonautic fleece he saught.
For still prophetic impulse wove
Those sever'd trunks from sacred grove,
And mystic voices here and there
From mast and rudder—cried "beware!"
And boast ye nought of spell or charm,
Your wanderer o'er the deep to arm?
No shield or panoply to cast
Around his breast mid danger's blast?
A Book ye have, of wondrous power,
Go, press it on his parting hour,
And make the Bible's voice divine
His pilot, while he ploughs the brine.
So shall an Oracle be near,
Like angel-whisper in his ear,
From swelling sail, from humble chest
Where home's lov'd tokens garner'd rest,
From dim forecastle's crowded throng
Mid oath and bacchanalian song,
From breaking dawn's uncertain light,
From lonely watch, at dead of night,
Even from the tempest's blackening cloud,
The iceberg dread, the shatter'd shroud,
The whelming surge, that voice shall be
A guide to immortality.