The Poetry Corner

The Ship Of State - A Sentiment

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from its first settlement. The Ship of State! above her skies are blue, But still she rocks a little, it is true, And there are passengers whose faces white Show they don't feel as happy as they might; Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, To head a little nearer south by west. And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck, In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, Now when she glides serenely on her way, - The shallows past where dread explosives lay, - The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie! And so I give you all the Ship of State; Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight; God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers Amid the breakers of unsounded years; Lead her through danger's paths with even keel, And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel! WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877.