Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTER FROM MEXICO, by EDOUARD JOACHIM CORBIERE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTER FROM MEXICO, by                    
First Line: You gave the youngster into my care. - he's dead
Last Line: "a soldier. An old salt."
Alternate Author Name(s): Corbiere, Tristan
Subject(s): Death - Children; Sailing & Sailors; Death - Babies; Seamen; Sails


"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—
Transplanting of the shrub.

"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
'A present for dear Sis.'

"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."





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