Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SAILOR'S WILL by ANDREW HEWITT

First Line: RED SLIPPERS FROM A PRINCESS'S FEET
Last Line: SONGS OF HER MEN TO HER DYING DAY.
Subject(s): LATIN;
Red slippers from a princess's feet
Bought for a song in a Persian street;

A string of beads and a kiss, or a peck,
In each dull stone upon her neck;

A stolen book from a grey convent
With its broken chain and Latin print;

All of these she gathered in,
But the last was a Spanish mandolin.

(In the northeast storm the other night
The crew of the Molly S. drowned outright.)

Now she's put by slippers, beads and book
And has got a job as a lady's cook.

But that mandolin on the wall will play
Songs of her men to her dying day.



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