Page:Friendship's Offering 1825.pdf/9

8

And wept; there were none to chide her,
That night it was a servant’s hand
Laid the book of prayer beside her.
The boy was glad—but one fond thought
Of the mother, who smooth’d his pillow,
Fill’d his eyes with tears, when, for the first time,
His slumber was waked by the pillow.
But he slept ’mid dreams of the blood-red flag,
The ball and the grape-shot’s rattle,
The cutlass sweeping the boarded deck,
And the storm of an ocean battle.
But his ship was bound for a sultry clime,
Where an Indian sun was beaming,
And from every wind that swept the sail,
Was the breath of fever streaming;
And men who had stood, unscath’d, when the balls
Like dust on the gale were flying,
And those whom the tempest of night had spared,
Were now like spring leaves dying.
He, too, was fading; that sailor youth,
The rose of his cheek had departed,
And his thought had turn’d to his own dear home—
And the mother he left broken-hearted.
It was one evening—the signal gun
O’er the echoing wind was ringing,
And the warning waves broke round the ship
As if they a dirge were singing.
He heard the sound, his steps grew faint,
And his pale brow waxed yet paler;
Next day the sea o’er the hammock broke,
Where slept the youthful sailor.
’Tis the church yard here where his father rests,
Here his mother’s grave is making;
And his is where the wild wind sweeps,
And the ocean waves are breaking.