Saturday Night In The Harbor

The boats bound in across the bar, Seen in fair colors from afar, Grown to dun colors strong and near; Their very shadows seem to fear The shadows of a week of harms, The memories of a week's alarms, And quiver like a happy sigh As ship and shadow, drifting by, Glide o'er the harbor's peaceful face, Each to its Sabbath resting-place. And some like weary children come, With sobbing sails, half sick for home; And some, like lovers' thoughts, to meet The veiléd shore, spring daring, sweet; And some reluctant, in the shade, The great reef dropt, like souls afraid, Creep sadly in. Against the shore Ship unto shadow turneth more And more. Ships, ocean, shadow, shore! Part not, nor stir forevermore! My thoughts sail inward silently, My week-day thoughts, O God, to thee! Cold fears, evasive like a star, And hopes whose gayest colors are Akin to shades of fear. Wild dreams Whose unimprisoned sweetness seems To-night a presence like a blame, A solid presence like a shame: And faint temptations with held breath Make room for cares as dark as death, Give place to broken aims, that sail Dismasted from some heart-spent gale. And those come leaping lightly in, And these crawl laggard, as a sin Turned shoreward--Godward--ever must. My soul sits humble in the dust, Content to think that in His grace Each care shall find its Sabbath place, Content to know that, less or more No sin can harbor near the shore.