Old Ships

I have no recollection of how I came to find this poem, but I do remember that I was instantly captivated by it.  I originally posted it on one of my first blog sites, in 2008.  

Five years have not dimmed my love for the poem, and now I share it with you.

Enjoy.  

Old Ships

There is a memory stays upon old ships,

A weightless cargo in the musty hold, 

Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips,

Of stormy midnights, - and a tale untold.

They have remembered islands in the dawn,

And windy capes that tried their slender spars,

And tortuous channels where their keels have gone,

And calm blue nights of stillness and the stars.

Oh, never think that ships forget a shore,

Or bitter seas, or winds that made them wise;

There is a dream upon them, evermore;

And there be some who say that sunk ships rise

To seek familiar harbors in the night,

Blowing in mists, their spectral sails like light.

                                          David Morton