Lydia Huntley Sigourney

The Sailor's Appeal

Ye dwellers on the stable land,
    Of danger what know ye,
Like us who brave the whelming surge,
    Or trust the treacherous sea?
The fair trees shade you from the sun,
    You see the harvests grow,
And breathe the fragrance of the breeze
    When the first roses blow.

You slumber on your beds of down,
    Close wrapp'd, in chambers warm,
Lull'd only to a deeper dream
    By the descending storm;
While high amid the slippery shroud
    We make our midnight path,
And e'en the strongest mast is bow'd
    Beneath the tempest's wrath.

Yet still, what know ye of the joy
    That lights our ocean-strife,
When on its way our gallant ship
    Rides like a thing of life;
When gayly towards the wish'd-for port
    With favouring wind we stand,
Or first your misty line descry,
    Hills of our native land!

There's deadly peril in our path
    Beyond the wrecking blast,
A peril that may reach the soul
    When life's short voyage is past;
Send us your Bibles when we go
    To dare the whelming wave,
Your men of prayer, to teach us how
    To meet a watery grave.

And, Saviour! thou whose foot sublime
    The foaming surge did tread,
Whose hand the rash disciple drew
    From darkness and the dead,
Oh! be our Ark when floods descend,
    When thunders shake the spheres,
Our Ararat when tempests end,
    And the green earth appears.