Oh, girl that I took by the hand to the altar two summers ago,
I would you were buried on land—my dear, it would comfort me so!
I would you were sleeping where grows the grass and the musical reed!
For how can you find a repose in the toss of the tangle and weed?
The night sped along, and I strained to the shadow and saw to the end
My captain and bird—he remained to the death a superlative friend:
In the face of the hurricane wild, he clung with the babe to the mast;
To the last he was true to my child—he was true to my child to the last.
The wind, like a life without home, comes mocking at door and at pane
In the time of the cry of the foam—in the season of thunder and rain,
And, dreaming, I start in the bed, and feel for my little one's brow—
But lost is the beautiful head; the cradle is tenantless now!
My home was all morning and glow when wife and her baby were there,
But, ah! it is saddened, you know, by dresses my girl used to wear.
I cannot re-enter the door; its threshold can never be crossed,
For fear I should see on the floor the shoes of the child I have lost.
There were three of us once in the world; but two are deep down in the sea,
Where waif and where tangle are hurled—the two that were portions of me;
They are far from me now, but I hear, when hushed are the night and the tide,
The voice of my little one near—the step of my wife by my side.
