Lewis Morris

Drowned

ONLY eighteen winters old!
Lay her with a tender hand
On the delicate, ribbed sea-sand:
Stiff and cold; ay, stiff and cold.

What she has been, who shall care?
Looking on her as she lies
With those stony, sightless eyes,
And the sea-weed in her hair.

Think, O mothers! how the deep
All the dreary night did rave;
Thundering foam and crested wave,
While your darlings lay asleep.

How she cleft the midnight air;
And the idiot surge beneath
Whirled her sea-ward to her death,
Angry that she was so fair.

Tossed her, beat her, till no more
Rage could do, through all the night;
Then with morning's ghastly light,
Flung her down upon the shore.

Mother! when brief years ago
You were happy in your child,
Smiling on her as she smiled,
Thought you she would perish so?

Man! who made her what she is;
What, if when you falsely swore
You would love her more and more,
You had seen her lie like this.

And, O Infinite Cause! didst Thou,
When Thou mad'st this hapless child,
Dowered with passions, fierce and wild,
See her lie as she lies now?

Filled with wild revolt and rage,
All I feel I may not speak;
Fate so strong, and we so weak,
Like rats in a cage, — like rats in a cage.