"Our boat to the waves." William Ellery Channing (1818-1901). VII. The Sea. Bliss Carman, et al., eds. 1904. The World's Best Poetry. V. Nature

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume V. Nature. 1904.

VII. The Sea

“Our boat to the waves”

William Ellery Channing (1818–1901)


OUR boat to the waves go free,
By the bending tide, where the curled wave breaks,
Like the track of the wind on the white snowflakes:
Away, away! ’T is a path o’er the sea.

Blasts may rave,—spread the sail,	5
For our spirits can wrest the power from the wind,
And the gray clouds yield to the sunny mind,
Fear not we the whirl of the gale.