Conductor Davy Chinn, who commissioned My Little Ship for the Indiana Wesleyan University Chorale, found Ruth Moshier’s poem while looking through old IWU yearbooks. In Moshier’s poem, we first encounter images of fragility or timidity: a moth fluttering, webs of moonlight, and boats quivering “anxious in the sail.” But ultimately, the narrator realizes that to be loved—to “have love’s ship return”—they must first be willing to send out their own love. Ultimately, to love someone else means trusting that love isn’t fragile after all.

 

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MY LITTLE SHIP
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Distant hills are shadowed o’er

Where my boat lies off the shore.

Moon moth flutters as he brings

Pretty music with his wings.

Little boat why sail away

In the cool soft moon of May?

Boats quiver anxious in the sail

‘Neath silver webs of moonlight frail.

If I would have love’s ship return

With gems and joys for which all yearn

Love’s ship I then must send to sea –

Else how could one return to me?

 

— Ruth Moshier

 

Public domain. Originally published in the Indiana Wesleyan University Yearbook, 1927.