Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MR. MERRY'S LAMENT FOR LONG TOM by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD

First Line: THY CRUISE IS OVER NOW
Last Line: POOR TOM.
Subject(s): SEA; OCEAN;

THY cruise is over now,
Thou art anchored by the shore,
And never more shalt thou
Hear the storm around thee roar;
Death has shaken out the sands of thy glass.
Now around thee sports the whale,
And the porpoise snuffs the gale,
And the night-winds wake their wail,
As they pass.

The sea-grass round thy bier
Shall bend beneath the tide,
Nor tell the breakers near
Where thy manly limbs abide ;
But the granite rock thy tombstone shall be.
Though the edges of thy grave
Are the combings of the wave--
Yet unheeded they shall rave
Over thee.

At the piping of all hands,
When the judgment signal's spread--
When the islands, and the lands,
And the seas give up their dead,
And the south and the north shall come;
When the sinner is dismayed,
And the just man is afraid,
Then heaven be thy aid,
Poor Tom.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net