Triumph, by Enos B. Comstock

Enos B. Comstock, an American writer and illustrator of the early 20th century, may be best known for his TUCK ME IN stories. Thus, the above illustration.

But I find inspiration in another of his works, the following poem,

TRIUMPH

You see me here within this shallow shoal,
This graveyard of abandoned ships,
Where wrecking crews have taken toll,
And battered hulks make no more trips,

Stripped of my spars, my topmasts and my shrouds
You seek for romance here in vain:
The full-blown sails that kissed the clouds
Will never bear me forth again.

Come, let your fancy take you far away --
Behold me tossed on emerald seas,
I bow to meet the silver spray
And revel in the tropic breeze.

Or, match me with a hundred winter gales
No peril did they hold for me:
They lashed their fury at my sails
But I came home triumphantly.

And here I bide, to pass to slow decay,
The murky waters lap my keel.
But when ships pass on Judgment Day
Thus proudly will I make appeal:

"Waste not your sympathy on me:
I won my battles with the sea."