The Whistle Maker and Other Poems/The Ships That Go Out
I sit on the hillside and watch them,
All they who go down to the sea,
And I watch the white sails
As they bend to the gales
And the gulls as they fly 'neath the clouds rushing by—
They all tell their story to me.
They have called as they passed on their way,
They've asked why I sit me to rest
In the shade of the tree
When the great rolling sea
Is calling so loud, when the wind and the cloud
All rush to the gold tinted west?
Asking in turn why they sail away
When there's wealth and health at my feet.
But they dance in their glee,
Waving farewell to me;
"Oh the water is blue, and our sweethearts are true
And the wind on the wave is sweet."
But I've seen when the ships 'turn again—
The sails are all battered and torn,
And the the youth that was free
Has gone down in the sea
There to rest evermore, 'neath the waves sullen roar,
And the home he left is forlorn.
But the sailors are born for the sea;
The plowmen are bound to the land,
And God's way is the best
For He brings them to rest,
From their labor and toil, from the rush and the moil,
To the fold and care of His hand.
July 23, 1913.