Classic Poem

My bark is my courser so gallant and brave;
Like a steed of the prairie she bounds o'er the wave,
And the breast of the billow, as onward I roam,
Swelling proudly to meet her, is fleck'd by her foam.

Like the winds which her canvas exultingly fill,
I float as I list, and I rove as I will;
The breeze cannot baffle, for with it I veer,
Or in the wind's eye like the petrel I steer.

O'er the pages of story the student may pore,
The trumpet the soldier may charm to the war,
In the forest the hunter his haven may see,
But the bounding blue water and shallop for me.

With no haven before me — beneath me my home —
All heaven around me wherever I roam,
I am free — I am free as the shrill piping gale
That whistles its music as onward I sail.