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The Mariner

I pray that I may be a mariner:

A man who dares to sound the ageless sea;
A man who masters tides and latitudes,
Who measures minutes from the dawning stars,
And climbs the mast to eye the distant storm;

A man who voyages beyond the rim,
And knows not for long years the solid hearth,
But vast uncharted rolling depths beneath
A modest cabin, full of instruments
And all that searches for the farthest mark
To make the infinite horizon known.

So, too, this mariner must leave the shore,
And seek the Indies westward, and explore
Those distances that seem to promise home.