The Lost Galleon.
15
Votive candles were scarce and dear.
Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry;
Never a lip is curved with pain
That can't be kissed into smiles again.
And these same truths, as far as I know,
Obtained on the coast of Mexico
More than two hundred years ago,
In sixteen hundred and fifty-one—
Ten years after the deed was done—
And folks had forgotten the galleon.
The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls,
White as the teeth of the Indian girls;
The traders sat by their full bazaars;
The mules with many a weary load,
And oxen, dragging their creaking cars,
Came and went on the mountain road.
Where was the galleon all this while—
Wrecked on some lonely coral isle?
Burnt by the roving sea marauders,
