SEA SORROW by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY

Sit still and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
@3The Tempest, Act I, Scene II.@1

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.

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