Ship of Earth

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <p id="id00532" style="margin-top: 3em"> The Ship of Earth.</p> <p id="id00533" style="margin-top: 2em">"Thou Ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and Sex aboard,<br/> And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold,<br/> I fear thee, O! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword<br/> At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold!<br/></p> <p id="id00534">"The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky,<br/> But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal red.<br/> A pilot, GOD, a pilot! for the helm is left awry,<br/> And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead!"<br/></p> <p id="id00535">____ Prattville, Alabama, 1868.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />