Angels on the high seas?

Pure angelic white wisp
Angel of the high seas
Will you tell what you've seen?
Where you've been?
I ask foolishly.

I know a man that's seen you
And yet he could not find the words
White is pure, and pure is white
Angels do glide soundlessly in streaming white over the dark face of the deep seas

No ordinary gull, or even grim-faced albatross you;
Not even the circumventer of them all, the tern
Your beauty is not of the birds;
It is a breath of heaven on the god-forsaken seas.

Tell me a hundredth, or a thousandth, of what you have seen
A fresh, cleansing, reviving breath of white
As you glide soundlessly over thousands of miles of many-coloured sea

You've seen the oceans roar and also deck themselves azure
The black fury of a storm at sea and gentle ripples glinting in sunlit blue
Heard cries of helpless seamen, doomed to the seabed
Carefree easy laughter of youths cruising across turquoise seas

You've known what it is to put miles behind you and yet have miles to go
To have covered ground and yet ever break new
An old wind forgot, a new wind embraced
You have no way to say it's all the same

Do you indeed have need of another?
Then you surely know of the solitary places
The wanderlust in my soul
The secret places on earth where no man can go

Did you see men in stone, standing in a row?
Staring out towards a distant horizon that only you could bring tidings of
Or did you go close to a boiling mountain, throwing fear to fear?
A solitary streak of angel-white against black clouds of disintegration

In vain do I ask, for what you know, is not yours to tell
The world's a secret place, and you know it full well
It was only given you to cross the seas and find the solitary places for yourself
But not given you to tell of them.

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