The sails of the ships are lying,
White on the floor of the mill,
Scarr’d with the wounds of the weather,
But sweet with the sea scent still.
Fresh from the spray of the sunshine,
And braving the tempest’s rage,
To the whirr and the hum of the wheels they come,
And the calm of the printed page.
Aloft from the spreading yard-arms,
They bent o’er the distant seas,
To the blast of the frozen Horn
Or sigh of the tropic breeze.
A message of might is tokened
On the cloths of each tattered sail,
For they bear the brand of the Storm King’s hand
In the strain of the sea and gale.
In a fairer form, and purer,
They come from the mill at last,
Transformed, as man hereafter,
When the wondrous change is past.
Between the boards of the Bible
The sails of the ships shall rest,
While they speed again o’er the troubled main
With the Master’s Word impressed.
Adamastor.
THE WORN-OUT SAILS.
Take down the sails, the worn and ragged sails,
Let them no longer flutter in the breeze,
And bear the gallant vessels to and fro
Over the seas, the blue and smiling seas.
They are so old, and worn, and tattered now,
Their work is done—shall they be cast away
As worthless rubbish, only fit to lie
And moulder in the dust-heaps, to decay?
No; put them to a greater, nobler use,
Give them a better purpose than before,
When the sun shone upon them white and new,
And when from shore to shore the ships they bore.
Wash all their dust, and stains, and spots away,
And fashion from them paper pure and fair,
And then when this thou hast completed, in
The leaves let God’s own blessed word appear.