That
loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To
evening, but some heart did break.
O
father, wheresoe’er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath
still’d the life that beat from thee.
O
mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,–while thy head is bow’d,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops
in his vast and wandering grave.
Ye
know no more than I who wrought
At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
And
something written, something thought;
Expecting
still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’
Or
‘here to-morrow will he come.’
O
somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor
child, that waitest for thy love!
For
now her father’s chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;
And thinking ‘this will please him best,’
She
takes a riband or a rose;
For
he will see them on to-night;
And with the thought her colour burns;
And, having left the glass, she turns
Once
more to set a ringlet right;
And,
even when she turn’d, the curse
Had fallen, and her future Lord
Was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford,
Or
kill’d in falling from his horse.
O
what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And
unto me no second friend.