Poems (Curwen)/Friends across the Sea

by Annie Isabel Curwen

Friends Across the Sea.

PRIZE POEM.

O friends! O friends across the sea,
 That surging barrier of blue,
Which parts so many loving hearts,
 And fills so many cups with rue.
The world is wide, the ocean deep,
 But thought is like the wild wind, free,
And wings its flight by day and night
 To you, O friends across the sea!

O friends! dear friends across the sea,
 Sojourners in far distant lands,
Our fond hearts yearn unceasingly
 To see your faces, clasp your hands;
Dear faces last seen through our tears,
 Dear hands we wrung in parting pain,
The weary months have run to years,
 And still we watch and wait in vain.

O friends! O friends across the sea,
 Whom duty still compels to roam,
Though hearts are hungering maybe
 For the wife and the bairns at home;
We cannot cross the deep to you,
 But for your welfare we can pray,
While fancy fondly paints the joy
 Of your return some future day.

O friends! loved friends across the sea,
 Settlers in far-off colonies,
Our sad hearts ache despairingly,
 As hope within us slowly dies—
The hope of a re-union here
 Slowly and surely fades away,
For some, grown old, will ne'er return,
 And some content, will never stray.

O friends! lost friends across the sea—
 That wide, wide waste of rolling waves—
Friends laid by stranger hands to rest
 On alien soil, in unwept graves;
The tempest of our grief is spent,
 The fountains of our tears are dry,
But, still, O friends, you're cherished yet,
 Embalmed in fondest memory!

O friends! O friends across the sea,
 Friends whom we hope to meet once more,
And friends whom Fate or Heaven decrees
 Shall ne'er re-visit this dear shore—
There is a land where we may meet,
 A haven where we long to be,
Our Father's home, where none shall weep
 And watch for "Friends across the sea."