The ocean, whose tides respond, like women's menses, to the pull of the moon, the ocean which corresponds to the amniotic fluid in which human life begins, the ocean on whose surface vessels (personified as female) can ride but in whose depth sailors meet their death and monsters conceal themselves... it is unstable and threatening as the earth is not; it spawns new life daily, yet swallows up lives; it is changeable like the moon, unregulated, yet indestructible and eternal.
|
May the road be free for the journey, May it lead where it promised it would, May the stars that gave ancient bearings Be seen, still be understood May every aircraft fly safely, May every traveler be found, May sailors in crossing the ocean Not hear the cried of the drowned May gardens be wild, like jungles, May nature never be tamed, May dangers create of us heroes, May fears always have names, May the mountains stand to remind us, Of what it mean to be young May we be outlived by our daughters, May we be outlived by our sons May the bombs rust away in the bunkers, And the doomsday clock not be rewound May the solitary scientists, working Remember the holes in the ground May the knife remain in the holder, May the bullet stay in the gun, May those who live in the shadows Be seen by those in the sun
|
But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and sixthe swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
|
Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
|
Those who become enamored of practices without science are like sailors who go aboard ship without a rudder and compass, for they are never certain where they will land.
|
But where is laid the sailor John That so many lands had known,...
|
Behold here the fate of a sailor! They give him the last toss, and no one asks whose child he was.
|
But the eyes, though they are no sailors, will never be satisfied with any model, however fashionable, which does not answer all the requisiti...
|