Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/154

150 While climbing high mid slippery shrouds Our midnight path we take, When the strongest mast like a reed is bow'd,   And the roughest timbers quake.

But do ye ever know the joy That cheers our ocean-strife, When o'er the waves, our gallant bark Glides like a thing of life? When gaily toward the wish'd-for port With favoring wind we stand, Or first the misty hill descry Of our own native land?

Say you there's peril on the deep? Well, so there is on land, And often when you idly sleep, Some tempter's close at hand. Yet there's a Guiding Power aloft, A pole-star mid the spheres, An Ararat to save the ark That o'er the deluge steers.