Explore "Man Sails the Deep Awhile" by Robert Louis Stevenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
MAN sails the deep awhile; / Loud runs the roaring tide; / The seas are wild and wide; / O'er many a salt, o'er many a desert mile, / The unchained breakers ride, / The quivering stars beguile.
Hope bears the sole command; / Hope, with unshaken eyes, / Sees flaw and storm arise; / Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying hand, / Steers, under changing skies, / Unchanged toward the land.
O wind that bravely blows! / O hope that sails with all / Where stars and voices call! / O ship undaunted that forever goes / Where God, her admiral, / His battle signal shows!
What though the seas and wind / Far on the deep should whelm / Colours and sails and helm? / There, too, you touch that port that you designed- / There, in the mid-seas' realm, / Shall you that haven find.
Well hast thou sailed: now die, / To die is not to sleep.
Still your true course you keep, / O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky; / And fifty fathom deep / Your colours still shall fly.