Poems (Cook)/The Deck of the "Outward Bound"

by Eliza Cook

THE DECK OF THE "OUTWARD BOUND."

How seldom we dream of the mariners' graves,
 Far down by the coral strand;
How little we think of the winds and the waves,
 When all we love are on land.
The hurricane comes and the hurricane goes,
 And little the heed we take;
Though the tree may snap as the tempest blows,
 And the walls of our homestead shake.
But the north-east gale tells a different tale,
 With a voice of fearful sound;
When a loved one is under a close-reef'd sail,
 On the deck of an "outward bound."

How wistfully then we look on the night,
 As the threatening clouds go by;
As the wind gets up and the last faint light
 Is dying away in the sky.
How we listen and gaze with a silent lip,
 And judge by the bending tree,
How the same wild gush must toss the ship,
 And arouse the mighty sea.
Ah! sadly then do we meet the day,
 When the signs of storm are found;
And pray for the loved one far away,
 On the deck of an "outward bound."

There is one that I cherish'd when hand in hand
 We roved o'er lowland and lea;
And I thought my love for that one on the land
 Was as earnest as love could be.
But now that one has gone out on the tide,
 I find that I worship the more;
And I think of the waters deep and wide,
 As I bask 'mid the flowers on shore.
I have watch'd the wind, I have watch'd the stars,
 And shrunk from the tempest sound;
For my heart-strings are wreath'd with the slender spars
 That carry the "outward bound."

I have slept when the zephyr forgot to creep,
 And the sky was without a frown;
But I started soon from that fitful sleep,
 With the dream of a ship going down.
I have sat in the field when the corn was in shock,
 And the reaper's hook was bright,
But my fancy conjured the breaker and rock,
 In the dead of a moonless night.
Oh! I never will measure affection again,
 While treading earth's flowery mound,
But wait till the loved one is far on the main,
 On the deck of an "outward bound."