Edwin John Dove Pratt

Loss of the Steamship Florizel

What changed thy face from that of yesterday,
    Great Sea! that with thy mothering hands outspread
And smiling on our common life, didst lay
    The table covers for our daily bread?

To-day, held by the thresh of iron shocks
    Within the vortex of a lightless fate,
Thy hands are tearing seaweed on the rocks,
    And thou—a stark and wild inebriate.