Oceanus

From my book Victory!

Oceanus was born upon the waves
Between the Old World and the New
With spar and mast set in the sign that saves
Above where the tempest blew

He was born to journey upon the barque,
Bound from birth for the Unknown Shore,
His cradle a Pilgrim’s pitching ark
That swung on the ocean’s roar

Cleaving the heaving seas, toward the Unknown Shore,
Flying ever before the winds that roam,
To a New World he’d never seen before,
That was meant to be his home


NOTE: Oceanus Hopkins was born aboard the Mayflower during the Pilgrim’s Atlantic crossing in 1620. He died in the New World sometime after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and before 1627, the exact dates of his birth and death being, like his gravesite, unknown.