Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/77

A berg like a mountain, closing fast—
Not a cable's length away!
I could not see through the sheet of mist
That covered all below,
But I heard the cheery voices still,
And I screamed to let them know.
The cry went down, and the skipper hailed,
But before the word could come
It died in his throat—and I knew they saw
The shape of the closing doom!

"No sound but that—but the hail that died
Came up through the mist to me;
Thank God, it covered the ship like a veil,
And I was not forced to see—
But I heard it, mates: O, I heard the rush,
And the timbers rend and rive.
As the yard I clung to swayed and fell:
—I lay on the ice, alive!
Alive! O God of mercy I ship and crew and sea were gone!
The hummocked ice and the broken yard.
And a kneeling man—alone!