Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SEA SORROW, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY First Line: We lay along the steamer's deck Last Line: Twill be memorial day. Subject(s): Death; Disasters; Grief; Holidays; Memorial Day; Sailing & Sailors; Shipwrecks; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness; Declaration Day | ||||||||
Sit still and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. The Tempest, Act I, Scene II. We lay along the steamer's deck, Beneath an awning's screen; Of time and tide we did not reck; Our envy was the cloudlet fleck That sailed the sky's demesne. The cloudlet seemed soul-satisfied, As one divinely shriven; It roamed the empyrean wide, Dissolving in the sunlight's tide And sinking into heaven. As seabird, poised on balanced wing, The tempest sweeps before, With measured might, and shuddering, The good ship, like a living thing, The heaving deep drove o'er. Prone on her cumbered deck we lay While day and dark were twined, As through the Gulf she took her way, Then, northward, flung the Atlantic's spray And left the South behind. A crowded hospital, she rocked On the deserted deep: Without, the sea her sorrow mocked; Within, disease despair unlocked, And anguish tortured sleep. I feel to-day the vessel's quiver, The rattle, throb, and jar: The hush returns, as if the river Of life had flowed away forever, And bared its moaning bar. The measured tramp the silence breaks As, borne by comrades four, His final march a soldier makes, Where reveille no longer wakes, And taps will hush no more. The prayer is said: the shotted shroud Is swallowed by the sea; The sobbing engines groan aloud; The heads are lifted that were bowed, And on our course are we. Ah me! it was a week of pain, With frequent pause like this: With many a burial in the main, And many a prayer that seemed in vain, But ne'er a mother's kiss. We wondered,as we slid them down, How soon our turn would come; And then aside such thoughts were thrown For what the sea can never drown, The memories of home. The last one in delirium tossed From dawn till set of sun: Visions of home his visage crost; His final fight was fought, and lost, Though braver ne'er was won. We gave him, 'neath the watchful stars, The flag for winding sheet: His memory no stigma mars; For medals he wore honor's scars; He never knew defeat. We gave them all to the great tomb That does not know decay; Where alway there is foaming bloom, And evermore, till Doomsday's boom, 'Twill be Memorial Day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEMORIAL DAY by JOSEPHINE MILES MEMORIAL DAY FOR THE WAR DEAD by YEHUDA AMICHAI MEMORIAL DAY by MICHAEL ANANIA AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH FREDERICKSBURG by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE DEATH OF GRANT by AMBROSE BIERCE MEMORIAL DAY by WILLIAM E. BROOKS VANQUISHED; ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT by FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE THE OLD CHURCH ON THE HILL by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY |
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