A good friend of mine is looking for a poem about a ship leaving port and heading out to sea. Would there be anyone out there who could help me. I sure do appreciate it. Thank you very much.

-- Martha Cooper (Tardie5446@aol.com), May 03, 1999

Answers

This probably isn't the one you're looking for but it's such a good poem that I couldn't help sharing it! John Masefield is a much neglected poet and was Poet Laureate (British) from 1930 to 1967. When he was a teenager he ran away to sea...

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amythysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

- John Masefield

-- Prabal Ray (Prabal.Ray@uk.abnamro.com), May 18, 1999.

this one ? Parable of immortality ( A ship leaves . . . ) by Henry Van Dyke - 1852 - 1933

I am standing by the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a peck of white cloud just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!"

Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the places of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There she goes!" There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout : "Here she comes!"

-- ilza (ilza@pobox.com), May 05, 1999.

Martha Can you please be more specific. Some words, the meaning, a clue, something . . . I happen to know several poems on ships leaving... rgds,ilza

-- ilza (ilza@aol.com), May 04, 1999.