The Lost at Sea

Wife, who in thy deep devotion
Puttest up a prayer for one
Sailing on the stormy ocean,
Hope no more — his course is done.
Dream not, when upon thy pillow,
That he slumbers by thy side;
For his corse beneath the billow
Heaveth with the restless tide.
Children, who, as sweet flowers growing,
Laugh amid the sorrowing rains,
Know ye many clouds are throwing
Shadows on your sire's remains?
Where the hoarse, gray surge is rolling
With a mountain's motion on,
Dream ye that its voice is tolling
For your father lost and gone!
When the sun look'd on the water,
As a hero on his grave,
Tinging with the hue of slaughter
Every blue and leaping wave,
Under the majestic ocean,
Where the giant current roll'd,
Slept thy sire, without emotion,
Sweetly by a beam of gold;
And the silent sunbeams slanted,
Wavering through the crystal deep,
Till their wonted splendours haunted
Those shut eyelids in their sleep.
Sands, like crumbled silver gleaming,
Sparkled through his raven hair;
But the sleep that knows no dreaming
Bound him in its silence there.
So we left him; and to tell thee
Of our sorrow and thine own,
Of the wo that then befell thee,
Come we weary and alone.
That thine eye is quickly shaded,
That thy heart-blood wildly flows,
That thy cheek's clear hue is faded,
Are the fruits of these new woes.
Children, whose meek eyes, inquiring
Linger on your mother's face —
Know ye that she is expiring,
That ye are an orphan race?
God be with you on the morrow,
Father, mother, — both no more;
One within a grave of sorrow,
One upon the ocean's floor!