BURIED AT SEA.
195
Pleading to human hearts in vain From the open gates of death.
Only a dread of the pestilent gale, A terrible godless fear;A shrinking away from the awful scourge That seems so fatally near;Bringing across our beautiful isle Its cruel and painful trail,Throwing its tainted air abroad From a poison-spreading sail.
Only a woman lying there On the vessel's deck to die;Nothing but ragged canvas stretched Between her face and the sky.Moaning in agony to the storm, Just telling the winds her pain—Only a cold, dead form at last Washed over with waves and rain.
Lying at peace on the upper deck, With never a shroud nor grave;Lowered at last by tremulous hands Down under the raging wave,—
