In the boat I was ordered to go—I was not more afraid than the rest,
But a husband will falter, you know, with the love of his life at his breast;
My captain was angry a space, but soon he grew tender in tone—
Perhaps there had flashed by his face a wife and a child of his own.
I was weak for some moments, and cried; but only one hope was in life;
The hood upon baby I tied—I fastened the shawl on my wife.
The skipper took charge of the child—he stuck to his word till the last;
But only this hood on the wild, bitter shore of the sea had been cast.
In the place of a coward, who shook like a leaf in the quivering boat,
A seat by the rowlocks I took; but the sea had me soon by the throat,
The surge gripped me fast by the neck—in a ring, and a roll, and a roar,
I was cast like a piece of the wreck, on a bleak, beaten, shelterless shore.
And there were my darlings on board for the rest of that terrible day,
And I watched and I prayed to the Lord, as never before I could pray.
The windy hills stared at the black, heavy clouds coming over the wave;
My girl was expecting me back, but where was my power to save?
Ah! where was my power, when Death was glaring at me from the reef?
I cried till I gasped for my breath, aloof with a maddening grief.
We couldn't get back to the deck: I wanted to go, but the sea
Dashed over the sides of the wreck, and carried my darling from me.
