Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/Lady Franklin
LADY FRANKLIN.[ON HER DEATH, 1875.]
In shadowy ships, that freeze, We think of men who sail, the frozen-fated;Tears, if you will, for these.But oh, the truest searcher of the seas In the blown breath of English daisies waited.
A pathway, here or there, He sought—the old, unlighted Pathway finding:Out of the North's despair,Out of the South's flower-burdened wastes of air, To that great Peaceful Sea forever winding.
Oh, after her vague quest Among weird winds, in icy deserts, lonely,Has she laid down to restUnder a Palm, whose light leaves on her breast Drop balms of summer, sun and silence only?