Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/50

            
Ere came the parting hour: for he was bound
Upon a three years' cruise.

                    He cheer'd his bride,
With promises to tempt the sea no more,
But after this, one farewell voyage, to rear
A cottage mid their native hills, where all
Her favorite flowers might grow, and dwell content
Forever at her side.

                       So, forth he went,
The dauntless Captain of a hardy crew,
To barb the monarch whale, mid arctic floods.
'Twere hard to tell, how loneliness and woe,
Chill'd her young breast, and how thro' midnight storms
She sleepless wept—or from some broken dream
Of shipwreck, and the swimmer spent with toil,
Sprang up, affrighted.

                    But with that good sense
Which marks a well-train'd mind, she quell'd her grief
By industry, and kindliest sympathies
In other's woe. Still for her parent's weal,
Both hand and heart were busy,—by the bed
Of the poor sick she sate, or fed the young