I SAW her first abreast the Boston Light At anchor; she had just come in, turned head, And sent her hawsers creaking, clattering down. I was so near to where the hawse-pipes red The cable out from her careening bow, I moved up on the swell, shut steam and lay Hove to in my old launch to look at her. She'd come in light, a-skimming up the Bay Like a white ghost with topsails bellying full; And all her noble lines from bow to stern Made music in the wind; it seemed she rode The morning air like those thin clouds that turn Into tall ships when sunrise lifts the clouds From calm sea-courses. There, in smoke-smudged coats, Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing craft, Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats. Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot To see the Frye come lording on her way Like some old queen that we had half forgot Come to her own. A little up the Bay The Fort lay green, for it was springtime then; The wind was fresh, rich with the spicy bloom Of the New England coast that tardily Escapes, late April, from an icy tomb. The State-House glittered on old Beacon Hill, Gold in the sun.... 'T was all so fair awhile; But she was fairest -- this great square-rigged ship That had blown in from some far happy isle Or from the shores of the Hesperides. They caught her in a South Atlantic road Becalmed, and found her hold brimmed up with wheat; "Wheat's contraband," they said, and blew her hull To pieces, murdered one of our staunch fleet, Fast dwindling, of the big old sailing ships That carry trade for us on the high sea And warped out of each harbor in the States. It was n't law, so it seems strange to me -- A big mistake. Her keel's struck bottom now And her four masts sunk fathoms, fathoms deep To Davy Jones. The dank seaweed will root On her oozed decks, and the cross-surges sweep Through the set sails; but never, never more Her crew will stand away to brace and trim, Nor sea-blown petrels meet her thrashing up To windward on the Gulf Stream's stormy rim: Never again she'll head a no'theast gale, Or like a spirit loom up, sliding dumb, And ride in safe beyond the Boston Light, To make the harbor glad because she's come. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: COLUMBUS CHENEY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES: CHORUS by AESCHYLUS LAMENT FOR THE MAKARIS [WHEN HE WAS SEIK] by WILLIAM DUNBAR BOSTON HYMN; READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON PANDOSTO, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME: IN PRAISE OF HIS BEST-BELOVED FAWNIA by ROBERT GREENE THE STIRRUP-CUP by JOHN MILTON HAY LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN by JOHN KEATS EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION by RUDYARD KIPLING |