How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it's late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.

O you, who in some pretty boat,
Eager to listen, have been following
Behind my ship, that singing sails along

Turn back to look again upon your own shores;
Tempt not the deep, lest unawares,
In losing me, you yourselves might be lost.

The sea I sail has never yet been passed;
Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

You other few who have neck uplifted
Betimes to the bread of angels upon Which one lives and does not grow sated,

Well may you launch your vessel
Upon the deep sea.

O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on! To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports, A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,) A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.

To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life:
Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me.

Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night, By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,

So I dream nightly of an embarcation,
captains, captains,
iron passageways, cabin lights,
Brooklyn across the waters,
the great dull boat, visitors, farewells,
the blurred vast sea — one trip a lifetime's loss or gain :

as Europe is my own imagination — many shall see her,
many shall not — though it's only the old familiar world
and not some abstract mystical dream.

And in a moment of previsioning sleep
I see that continent in rain,
black streets, old night, a
fading monument . . .

And a long journey unaccomplished
yet, on antique seas
rolling in gray barren dunes under
the world’s waste of light
toward ports of childish geography
the rusty ship will
harbor in . . .

You haven't lived until you've sailed

Hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

From the North to the South, Ebudæ into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds to the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves to the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves to the lands I've never seen,
We can sail, we can sail with the Orinoco Flow,
We can sail, we can sail,
Sail away, sail away, sail away.

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.

My nightly craft is winged in white, a dragon of night dark sea.
Swift born, dream bound and rudderless, her captain and crew are me.
We've sailed a hundred sleeping tides where no seaman's ever been
And only my white-winged craft and I know the wonders we have seen.

In the ancient Greek allegory, Theseus — the founder-king of Athens — sailed triumphantly back to the great city after slaying the mythic Minotaur on Crete. For a thousand years, his ship was maintained in the harbor of Athens as a living trophy and was sailed to Crete annually to reenact the victorious voyage. As time began to corrode the vessel, its components were replaced one by one — new planks, new oars, new sails — until no original part remained. Was it then, Plutarch asks, the same ship? There is no static, solid self. Throughout life, our habits, beliefs, and ideas evolve beyond recognition. Our physical and social environments change. Almost all of our cells are replaced. Yet we remain, to ourselves, “who” “we” “are.