The Vanishing Dutchman

Four hundred years hence
spun a seagoing tale
of a doomed merchant ship
falling prey to a gale.

According to legend,
the phantom appears
with an oncoming storm
but it fades as it nears.

Some count it as truth
down to every last word,
and this is the way
it's most commonly heard:

The ship had a vast
load of cargo to haul
but in rounding Good Hope
it ran into a squall.

With a sign from the Heavens,
the captain was warned
if he battled the squall
he was soon to be mourned.

"We will sail until doomsday",
the ship's captain swore,
"and if that's what it takes,
we will make it to shore!"

By those dissident words
of the captain's decree,
the punishing storm
made them ghosts of the sea

and for centuries since,
came a number of tales
of a two-masted ghost ship
without any sails.

What the lookouts above
saw emerge in their scope,
was a spectral hull
off the Cape of Good Hope.

And soon, recognized
when it came into view,
as the ghost of the Dutchman
and skeleton crew.

The rueful ghost captain
cries out in remorse
as his merchantman ship
remains doomed on its course.

To spot the ghost vessel
fortells of one's fate,
as once it is seen,
it is sadly too late.