Was towed upstream, and, to be sold for junk,
Was moored beside the Stokley. Where her bow,
All scarred and singed with flame and red with rust,
Must almost overhang the very bench
Of love and happy dreams, the Roald lay.
And Mary, coming down to that old haunt
Where all her bliss and heartbreak were most near,
Found the dead ship, approached, and read the name.
Well, such a tale one cannot tell in full;
Heart's inmost anguish is the heart's alone.
But night by night the girl is sitting there,
Watching the profile of that ship of death,
Watching the Stokey, and the kindly men
Who fought the fire and grappled in the ooze
And did not find the thing she hoped and feared.
And still her only consolation lies
In those two words cut on the trysting stone,
Unbroken Faith. Her faith unbroken still
She sits in shadow near their meeting place:
She will not fail him, should he ever come.
She watches all the children at their play,
And does not fear to dream what might have been,
And half believes, beneath the summer roof,
To see, across the narrow strip of park,
His ruddy face, blond head and quiet eyes.
Yet not until the kindly dusk has come
And fills the little park with blue that heals
Does she go down. She cannot bear to see
The sunset sheet the river o'er with flame.
