Page:Poems Welby.djvu/78

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THE CAPTIVE SAILOR BOY.
  The light of many stars
Quivers in tremulous softness on the air,
And the night-breeze is singing here and there,
  Yet from my prison-bars
A narrow strip of sky is all I see—
O! that some kindly hand would set me free!

  The bright new moon is hung
Up 'mid the softness of the fleecy clouds,
And the far ocean 'neath its foamy shrouds
  Thrills like a harp fresh strung,
And the wild sea-birds on quick pinions flee—
O! for one glance upon the deep blue sea!

  Why should the young and brave
Be fettered thus upon the fresh green earth?
Give me one hour beside my mother's hearth,
  And then for ocean's wave!
Free as the laughing billows I would toss—
O! for the swift wing of the albatros!