The Sailor's Appeal

Ye dwellers on the stable land,Of danger what know ye,Like us who brave the whelming surge,Or trust the treacherous sea?The fair trees shade you from the sun,You see the harvests grow,And breathe the fragrance of the breezeWhen the first roses blow.

You slumber on your beds of down,Close wrapp'd, in chambers warm,Lull'd only to a deeper dreamBy the descending storm;While high amid the slippery shroudWe make our midnight path,And e'en the strongest mast is bow'dBeneath the tempest's wrath.

Yet still, what know ye of the joyThat lights our ocean-strife,When on its way our gallant shipRides like a thing of life;When gayly towards the wish'd-for portWith favouring wind we stand,Or first your misty line descry,Hills of our native land!

There's deadly peril in our pathBeyond the wrecking blast,A peril that may reach the soulWhen life's short voyage is past;Send us your Bibles when we goTo dare the whelming wave,Your men of prayer, to teach us howTo meet a watery grave.

And, Saviour! thou whose foot sublimeThe foaming surge did tread,Whose hand the rash disciple drewFrom darkness and the dead,Oh! be our Ark when floods descend,When thunders shake the spheres,Our Ararat when tempests end,And the green earth appears.