Oh, to helm an angel ship
__Adrift in a billowy sea
With a specter crew in a sky of blue,
__Just the vast beyond and me.
Flying the mist like gulls on the wind,
__With never a falter or care,
On silver sails and vapor trails
__To the call of the open air
Soaring past cumulus mountains,
__As higher and higher I climb
While breezes blow over waves like snow
__On the other side of time.
The course is set by the hand of faith
__For a port beyond the sun,
And God will give eternal peace
__When at last the journey’s done.
C. David Hay is a retired dentist living in Indiana and Florida. He received his BS and Doctor of Dental surgery Degrees from Indiana University. He is the author of five books of poetry which are dedicated to his wife, Joy. He has been widely published nationally and abroad and his poetry has been read on the British Broadcasting Channel. He was the first American published in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta in Russia. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry and is the recipient of the Ordo Honoris Award from Kappa Delta Rho.
The best kind of Sunday morning poem!
C. David,
This was a very toothsome poem with sharp images and a very well balanced amalgam of iambs & anapests. It rolls through the mind’s ear like distant thunder and leaves behind the tang of ozone. Nicely executed!
Beautiful!
Thank you for your poem.; for your choice of form, your meter and rhyme, apt vocabulary and for not pounding your strong message home. This sort of poem works much better if it simply seeps into the air and is inhaled as a home truth. Like Joe. I am uplifted on a Sunday.
Sally is so right; this is a wonderful poem! Thank you.
Wow, what a beautiful poem combining images of a ship on the sea setting the course for our faith. With wonderful fluidity and a meaningful story, truely language squared.
This beautiful poem puts me in mind of “Sea Fever” by John Masefield – a wonderful start to my Sunday morning! Thank you, Mr. Hay.
Like Susan, I was reminded of Masefield! As a lover of all things maritime I really enjoyed your beautiful poem in which you have taken things a step further, leading us to our glorious conclusion. Great work- thank you!
Brilliant! Tastes a little like The Wreck of the Hesperus, Bravo!
Another great poem by “America’s favorite poet”–at least my favorite poet and I’m an American!
C. David, your poem also reminded me of Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’.
It has the same melodic quality and maritime setting. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Beautiful and very well written.
David-I rarely am moved by direct references to God or any other device which relies on a shared didactic assumption, but you have accomplished such a genuine spiritually uplifting effect in the first three stanzas of this poem as to give a heightened and altogether transcendent meaning to the final, triumphantly beautiful stanza. Thank you.
So beautiful, is it our final journey at the end of our lives? The angels ship to heaven.