All's Well by Bill Adams at Old Poetry

Poetry • Poets • Essays • Forums •

There's an ache in my heart, and I can't tell why,
Something to do with the sea and sky,
And maybe a star or so;
Maybe a whirl of wind and snow
And the easy lift of a sailing-ship
Gliding away from her landing-slip,
Heading at dawn for the misty west
In her little white royals and skysails dressed;
There's a lilting tune I seem to hear,
A roving chorus, a quavered cheer;
The air is chill as there rumbles past
A berg as tall as her tall mainmast;
There's the creak of her gear in the stilly night,
With her braces and sheets and halliards tight;
Dear God! But I'd give my soul to go
To the open sea and the wind and snow,
To that all clear cry of the ocean night:
"All's well, sir, and all her lights are bright!"

Notes

From WIND IN THE TOPSAILS, edited by Bill Adams, published by George G. Harrap & Co., London, UK, © 1931, p. 15. Republished in SHIPS AND MEMORIES, by Bill Adams, Teredo Books LTD, UK, 1975, p. 449.

The poet under doctor's orders was prohibited from returning to sea after successfully completing a four-year apprenticeship aboard a four-masted bark; the diagnosis was chronic asthma.

Charley Noble