Firm trust of the bold sailor on the shores of sudden storm, <br />What strength is in its structure and the fitness of its form! <br />Old ocean’s bed-rock gripping, with the hurricane’s tug ’twill cope, <br />And therefore ’tis the emblem held of man’s eternal hope. <br />Through the billows ceaseless raging, by the bleak and stormy steep, <br />Like a thunderbolt down-rushing it is shot into the deep; <br />Down where some mute sea-monster its so hideous bulk uprears, <br />And mightiest silence drowned hath lain for many a thousand years. <br /> <br />In some famed bay of battle when ’tis plunged with sullen roar, <br />In the Nile, In Navarino, or by Danish Elsinore, <br />How deep there shall its slumbers be beneath the sounding waves, <br />Amid the bones of gallant tars in glory’s watery graves. <br /> <br />In the bright and landlocked harbour, the weary voyage o’er, <br />When only pleasant breezes breathe sweet welcome from the shore, <br />Its massive form down-dropping to its quiet bed below <br />Gives signal to the first glad boat that beachward pants to go. <br /> <br />In the calm thou firm-fixed surety, thou strong helper in the storm, <br />Even a child when first beholding all the fitness of thy form, <br />Might well divine the dangers wherewithal ’tis thine to cope, <br />And take thee as the emblem meet of man’s eternal hope<br /><br />Charles Harpur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-anchor/
