| |
| WHAT flecks the outer gray beyond | |
| The sundown’s golden trail? | |
| The white flash of a sea-bird’s wing, | |
| Or gleam of slanting sail? | |
| Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, | 5 |
| And sea-worn elders pray,— | |
| The ghost of what was once a ship | |
| Is sailing up the bay! | |
| |
| From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, | |
| From peril and from pain, | 10 |
| The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, | |
| O hundred-harbored Maine! | |
| But many a keel shall seaward turn, | |
| And many a sail outstand, | |
| When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms | 15 |
| Against the dusk of land. | |
| |
| She rounds the headland’s bristling pines; | |
| She threads the isle-set bay; | |
| No spur of breeze can speed her on, | |
| Nor ebb of tide delay. | 20 |
| Old men still walk the Isle of Orr | |
| Who tell her date and name, | |
| Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards | |
| Who hewed her oaken frame. | |
| |
| What weary doom of baffled quest, | 25 |
| Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine? | |
| What makes thee in the haunts of home | |
| A wonder and a sign? | |
| No foot is on thy silent deck, | |
| Upon thy helm no hand; | 30 |
| No ripple hath the soundless wind | |
| That smites thee from the land! | |
| |
| For never comes the ship to port, | |
| Howe’er the breeze may be; | |
| Just when she nears the waiting shore | 35 |
| She drifts again to sea. | |
| No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, | |
| Nor sheer of veering side; | |
| Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, | |
| Against the wind and tide. | 40 |
| |
| In vain o’er Harpswell Neck the star | |
| Of evening guides her in; | |
| In vain for her the lamps are lit | |
| Within thy tower, Seguin! | |
| In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, | 45 |
| In vain the pilot call; | |
| No hand shall reef her spectral sail, | |
| Or let her anchor fall. | |
| |
| Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, | |
| Your gray-head hints of ill; | 50 |
| And, over sick-beds whispering low, | |
| Your prophecies fulfil. | |
| Some home amid yon birchen trees | |
| Shall drape its door with woe; | |
| And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, | 55 |
| The burial boat shall row! | |
| |
| From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, | |
| From island and from main, | |
| From sheltered cove and tided creek, | |
| Shall glide the funeral train. | 60 |
| The dead-boat with the bearers four, | |
| The mourners at her stern,— | |
| And one shall go the silent way | |
| Who shall no more return! | |
| |
| And men shall sigh, and women weep, | 65 |
| Whose dear ones pale and pine, | |
| And sadly over sunset seas | |
| Await the ghostly sign. | |
| They know not that its sails are filled | |
| By pity’s tender breath, | 70 |
| Nor see the Angel at the helm | |
| Who steers the Ship of Death! | |
| |
