Poems (Odom)/Buried at Sea
BURIED AT SEA.
[Suggested by the burial, in Galveston Bay, of a woman who died on shipboard of a contagious fever.]
Far back in the ages, dim with dust, We read of the idol gold;And under the sacred roof-tile yet The story is often toldOf the idol wrought—of the precious ore— And set in the temple fair;When men bowed down to the golden calf, Forgetting that God was there.
But that was ages ago, they say, Before the Redeemer came,When all this beautiful Christian love Was naught but a smothered flame.When even the wisest, best of men— The truest of all the true—The godlike words of the golden rule Not one of them even knew.
But now it is nineteen hundred years Almost, since the world was toldThat God's own Son came down to teach Of love far better than gold:A beautiful story of hope and faith, Of triumph beyond the tomb;Where charity's pure and spotless flower Is kept in immortal bloom.
How Christians stand in the ranks of death, With never a doubt nor fear;Doing the work of the God they serve, Knowing His arm is near;Tenderly watching the fevered pulse, Now bathing the burning head;Flinging the golden calf away, And working for God instead.
*****
Only a storm-tost ship at sea, And the wild wave's hungry roar,The red-hot touch of a fevered gale In sight of a Christian shore.Weak women and children lying there Bowed down by its burning breath, Pleading to human hearts in vain From the open gates of death.
Only a dread of the pestilent gale, A terrible godless fear;A shrinking away from the awful scourge That seems so fatally near;Bringing across our beautiful isle Its cruel and painful trail,Throwing its tainted air abroad From a poison-spreading sail.
Only a woman lying there On the vessel's deck to die;Nothing but ragged canvas stretched Between her face and the sky.Moaning in agony to the storm, Just telling the winds her pain—Only a cold, dead form at last Washed over with waves and rain.
Lying at peace on the upper deck, With never a shroud nor grave;Lowered at last by tremulous hands Down under the raging wave,— Lowered away from the tossing ship, No reading of psalm, nor prayer,To breathe of peace to the parting soul, No whisper that God is there.
Galveston, August 8, 1852.