Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD SEA CAPTAIN, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD SEA CAPTAIN, by                    
First Line: In the secluded, sleepy town
Last Line: Are his companions now.
Subject(s): Old Age; Sailing & Sailors; Sea Voyages; Ships & Shipping


In the secluded, sleepy town
A little world his will obeys,
As when his ships went up and down
On the wide ocean ways.

So long he trod the reeling decks
With watchful eye and wary feet,
As though he still of danger recks
He walks the stable street.

So well he scanned by day and night
The veering clouds and fickle sea,
His vision, like the eagle's sight,
Seems strange to you and me.

So long he felt the jar and fret
Of storm, and calm, and tidal roll,
The strength and weakness these beget
Have passed into his soul.

He does not know the landsman's art
To plead and please, and overreach;
Unfenced as ocean's fields his heart,
As fraught with storms his speech.

Though sometimes through his eyes there gleams
A love-light, soft as flame refined,
In his severer moods he seems
A stranger to his kind.

When evening's sombre curtains fall
And lights from heavenly casements leap
He hears the sea-bird's cry and all
The noises of the deep.

The welkin fails to comfort him
Whose boundary our vision bars;
He longs to pass its girdling rim
And raise the alien stars.

When slumber seals his wakeful ears
His voyages he makes once more,
By reefs that erst have wrecked him steers
And hears their breakers roar.

The good ships, once his joy and pride
But long the driftwood of the seas,
He guides where fleets and navies ride
His pride and wonder these.

His crews are those he shipped of old;
They grumble still, and sing, and swear;
Their bones are mixed with pearls and gold
That pave the kraken's lair.

His gaze fixt on the warning glass,
The guiding stars, the needle's poise,
He keeps all watches as they pass—
Till dawn the dream destroys.

Of the long voyage oft he thinks,
Across a water never passed,
And trusts, whatever floats or sinks,
To make the port at last.

Think not his deeper self to know;
His handshake thine, his smile, his bow;
But his companions long ago
Are his companions now.





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