The Last Mission of the Sails
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.