"You gave the youngster into my care.—He's dead, And many more along with him, poor little mate! The crew ... there is none.—There's two or three, so it's said Will get back home.—It's fate. "Nothing's so fine as a sailor's life for a youth; All the landlubbers pine for it sure enough— Save the discomfort. So now you may see for truth How prentice life is rough. "I blub as I write that, hard old case as I be. I'd have given my skin to save him and send him home ... There's no sense in it, I know ... but don't blame me. What has to be will come. "The fever's here as wild as the carnival, We're all on our way to the graveyard to draw our grub. The Zouave he calls it—our old Parisian pal— @3Transplanting of the shrub.@1 "Cheer up! The world here cracks like a fly in the hand ... I found in his bundle some keepsakes he'd often kiss: The portrait of a girl, Turk slippers, and @3'A present for dear Sis.'@1 "To Mamma he bid me say: that his pray'rs didn't fail. To Father: he'd sooner have died in some fierce assault. Two angels were there beside him when he set sail: A soldier. An old salt." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...1914: 2. SAFETY by RUPERT BROOKE THE CONTRACT by EMILY DICKINSON MELANCHOLIA by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 27 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN STRANGE MEETINGS: 1 by HAROLD MONRO A SONG FOR THE SINGLE TABLE ON NEW YEAR'S DAY by ELIZABETH FRANCES AMHERST |