. . .They tacked and stood across the bar:
Only the sea knows where they are—

[Pg 21]

Only the sea!
Perhaps at night the phantom ships—
Thy lost ships—come sailing in;
Their spectre crews with parted lips
That utter no sound, for the spell of death
Turns even a laugh to a grin.
Do they wait, and list for the din
Of the cheers and the bells to welcome them in—
For the cheers and the bells to welcome them in?
Do their dead hearts know hopes and fears?
Do they dream of the wives they've not seen for years?—
The wives and the sweethearts who watched them thro' tears
Sail away, sail away, when the wind was south
And the bar was blue at the harbor's mouth,
And the gulls flew low like flakes of snow,
And the summer wind bore the heave-yo-ho
Of the sailors brown

[Pg 22]

Into the town?
Are they here, the ones so dear?
Alas! the lips that their lips have known,
Alas! the hearts th. . . Read More