The Dead Ship Of Harpswell

What flecks the outer gray beyond     The sundown's golden trail?     The white flash of a sea-bird's wing,     Or gleam of slanting sail?     Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point,     And sea-worn elders pray,     The ghost of what was once a ship     Is sailing up the bay.     From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,     From peril and from pain,     The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,     O hundred-harbored Maine!     But many a keel shall seaward turn,     And many a sail outstand,     When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms     Against the dusk of land.     She rounds the headland's bristling pines;     She threads the isle-set bay;     No spur of breeze can speed her on,     Nor ebb of tide delay.     Old men still walk the Isle of Orr     Who tell her date and name,     Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards     Who hewed her oaken frame.     What weary doom of baffled quest,     Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine?     What makes thee in the haunts of home     A wonder and a sign?     No foot is on thy silent deck,     Upon thy helm no hand;     No ripple hath the soundless wind     That smites thee from the land!     For never comes the ship to port,     Howe'er the breeze may be;     Just when she nears the waiting shore     She drifts again to sea.     No tack of sail, nor turn of helm,     Nor sheer of veering side;     Stern-fore she drives to sea and night,     Against the wind and tide.     In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star     Of evening guides her in;     In vain for her the lamps are lit     Within thy tower, Seguin!     In vain the harbor-boat shall hail,     In vain the pilot call;     No hand shall reef her spectral sail,     Or let her anchor fall.     Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy,     Your gray-head hints of ill;     And, over sick-beds whispering low,     Your prophecies fulfil.     Some home amid yon birchen trees     Shall drape its door with woe;     And slowly where the Dead Ship sails,     The burial boat shall row!     From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point,     From island and from main,     From sheltered cove and tided creek,     Shall glide the funeral train.     The dead-boat with the bearers four,     The mourners at her stern,     And one shall go the silent way     Who shall no more return!     And men shall sigh, and women weep,     Whose dear ones pale and pine,     And sadly over sunset seas     Await the ghostly sign.     They know not that its sails are filled     By pity's tender breath,     Nor see the Angel at the helm     Who steers the Ship of Death!                 .        .        .        .        .     "Chill as a down-east breeze should be,"     The Book-man said. "A ghostly touch     The legend has. I'm glad to see     Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch."     "Well, here is something of the sort     Which one midsummer day I caught     In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish."     "We wait," the Traveller said;     "serve hot or cold your dish."