A Path in the Mighty Waters by Stephen R. Berry

Author:Stephen R. Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300210255
Publisher: Yale University Press

Thomas Nicolson entreated his second wife to remain “constant as the sun” and hoped that “our affections never rove.” Another sailor confidently asserted at the beginning of his log that he had nothing to fear by absenting himself from his sweetheart.

Sence my Molly She is true As She is fair

My greaf I will fling unto the wind

It is O Pleasing Return to My Care

Since My true Love is Constant and kind

Sailors wrote poems both to assert their love for those distant and to comfort themselves for creating that distance. Sometimes it is unclear to whom sailors directed these encouragements to fidelity—to themselves or to women. On the cover of a diary of the ship Ceres, a sailor penned:

Oh Beauty! smiling Cherub of the sky

Tis thine to warm the Heart & Catch the eye

Alike a Canker’s Rose thy bloom decays

And all thy glow is but a borrow’d blaze

If sacred Virtue does not round thee stand

And spotless Honor guide thee by the hand

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