The Ship Of State - A Sentiment

This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from its first settlement.

The Ship of State! above her skies are blue,
But still she rocks a little, it is true,
And there are passengers whose faces white
Show they don't feel as happy as they might;
Yet on the whole her crew are quite content,
Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent,
And willing, if her pilot thinks it best,
To head a little nearer south by west.
And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck,
In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck,
Now when she glides serenely on her way, -
The shallows past where dread explosives lay, -
The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try
Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie!
And so I give you all the Ship of State;
Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight;
God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers
Amid the breakers of unsounded years;
Lead her through danger's paths with even keel,
And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel!

WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A member of the Fireside Poets, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American physician, poet, and polymath known for his witty and conversational style. His medical writings and advocacy for public hygiene were influential, while his poetry often drew from his professional experiences and observations. Holmes was also a founding contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, where many of his essays and poems were published.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Simple Poetry

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Simple Poetry

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Ship Of State

O ship of state
Shall new winds bear you back upon the sea?
What are you doing? Seek the harbor's lee
Ere 't is too late!

Do you bemoan
Your side was stripped of oarage in the blast?
Swift Africus has weakened, too, your mast;
The sailyards groan.

Of cables bare,
Your keel can scarce endure the lordly wave.
Your sails are rent; you have no gods to save,
Or answer pray'r.

Though Pontic pine,
The noble daughter of a far-famed wood,
You boast your lineage and title good,--
A useless line!

The sailor there
In painted sterns no reassurance finds;
Unless you owe derision to the winds,
Beware--beware!

My grief erewhile,
But now my care--my longing! shun the seas
That flow between the gleaming Cyclades,
...

Eugene Field

Voyage Of The Good Ship Union

'T is midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's cry;
Before the gale, with tattered sail,
A ship goes plunging by.
What name? Where bound? - The rocks around
Repeat the loud halloo.
- The good ship Union, Southward bound:
God help her and her crew!

And is the old flag flying still
That o'er your fathers flew,
With bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?
- Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?
- O landsman, there are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
- Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that wrec...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Ship

    There was no song nor shout of joy
    Nor beam of moon or sun,
    When she came back from the voyage
    Long ago begun;
    But twilight on the waters
    Was quiet and grey,
    And she glided steady, steady and pensive,
    Over the open bay.

    Her sails were brown and ragged,
    And her crew hollow-eyed,
    But their silent lips spoke content
    And their shoulders pride;
    Though she had no captives on her deck,
    And in her hold
    There were no heaps of corn or timber
    Or silks or gold.

John Collings Squire, Sir

To The State. I-14 (From The Odes Of Horace)

    Oh! Ship of State! fresh billows to sea will bear thee back,
    Then turn about and bravely toward the harbor tack,
    Thou see'st that thy naked sides defending oarsmen lack.

    Behold! thy mast lies shattered before the swift south wind,
    Listen! the yards are creaking, the ropes no longer bind,
    Strength to endure the boisterous waves thy keel can hardly find.

    Now all thy sails are ragged; the gods are swept away
    To whom, borne down by peril, thy quaking soul would pray.
    Though lofty be thy lineage, its pride is vain today.

    The power and name thou boastest are now of no avail,
    Thy stern is gayly painted, and still thy seamen quail,
    Beware lest thou art made the sport of every idle gale.

    Ah! dearly loved, my count...

Helen Leah Reed

A Sea Dialogue

Cabin Passenger.            Man at Wheel.

CABIN PASSENGER.
Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much
That he who sails the ocean should be sad.
I am myself reflective. When I think
Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked
Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves,
What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls;
What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns,
What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls,
Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes,
Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man,
The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm;
What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books;
What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains;
Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw, -
I, too, am silent; for all language seems
A mockery...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar; -
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; -
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of...

Oliver Wendell Holmes