Данске Дэндридж (Danske Dandridge)

Lost at Sea

Ah, many a time I have wept by night,
I have moaned with the moaning sea,
When the dear lost eyes of my dead delight
Looked out of her depths on me.
           
And many a time when the sea was calm,
And the moon was lying there,
I have caught the gleam of a snowy arm,
And the glimmer of flowing hair.
           
But I would I had died when the ship went down
That was bringing my love to me,
When my hope, and my heart, and my all went down
To the heart of the heaving sea.
           
How she moans all night for the cruel deed;
She moans, for she cannot rest;
And she cradles my bride with the brown sea-weed
In the swell of her troubled breast.
           
How she sucks my life with her sobbing breath,
How she draws me with her spell,
Till I know that at last I shall sink in death
Where the coiled sea-serpents dwell.
           
Then my spirit will haste to her resting-place,
As she lies on the wreck-strewn floor;
I will shelter my love in a close embrace
Till the sea shall be no more.