The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-09-24
sHRoupEp AND in THE SEA.

We stood on the dock, a reverent group, in
light of the setting sun,
With heads all barred and voices hushed, and
listening every one,
To the deep, low tones of the shippers voice,
who the burial service read,
And the solemn words awed each rough
heart as we gave to the sea its dead.
The unbidden tears all dimmed my ewes as /
gazed on the quiet face;
A ray from the sun in the reclining west
And my heart was filled with plying love
for somebody far away,
Who was dream g, perhaps. of her absent
boy on the eve OF that sad day.
The warm, soft breeze of the southern seas
stirred the locks on his forehead fair,
And / thought of some mother whose fond
Ing hand had caressed that golden hair:
/ cut one curl from over his brow, and kisses
those lips so white,
For somebody's sake, whose light of love
would be changed to sudden night.
a dag about his breast;
His grave in the calm, many fathoms deep,
where H gives His beloved rest"
With tender hands they lowered his bier over
the tall ships side,
His funeral hymn was the gentle plash Of the
ebbing and flowing tide.
That night the skipper, with tear-dimmed
eyes, brought me q parcel small,
poor lads kit, and a woman knows best
How to tell a story that's hard to tell, and to
comfort a brothers heart.
Will you write to his mother and tell her all
well, you know how to start.
Ear tell her that every man of us loved her
boy, the life of our boat;
Hearty and busy and full of life, whether we
were ashore or ahoat.
We fain would nave brought him safe back
again, only the Captain above
Knew better than we, and guided min home
to a haven of rest and lover .
So 1 opened the packet with trembling hands,
it Seemed such a sacred thing;
Letters and photos and little gifts and half
of q broken ring.
Keepsakes gathered in foreign lands for the
And a letter half finished, to catch the mails
by a passenger bound for Rome.
He told of an elephant hunt in Ceylon, of a
storm in Biscay's Bay,
OF their trip through the Suez Canal and how
~ they all held the Christmas Day.
There was owe to Harry and Dick and Ray,
besides to Maggie and Suse,
Whose feet he hoped hadn't bigger grown for
he'd bought them Chinese shoes.
And now he would soon be back, he said, to
his Scottish home again,
After two long years of wandering life on
the restless, stormy main;
Then he stopped, for he said his watch had
How could I send it2 What could 1 say to
break such a tale of sorrow?
OuO ~ EItTc VI a WOIu, SWccI ldCG
and beneath in a boyish and
Was written Mother" I saw her again in
the amidst of a smiling band
OF boys and girls of every size, but she laid
a proud hand on one
Her sailor lad with his bright, frank face. her
eldest and ablest son.
Photos of school-boy friends there were, and
one of a fair young face,
Smiling and tender-eyed. beneath he had
written the one word 'Grace,"
A dainty housewife, all 'broidered gay, held
buttons and pins and thread,
And worked on the ribbon which held the
spools: ITO my darling brother Ned"
I broke to his mother as well as 1 could, with
many a falling tear,
The news SO sad. and the curlI sent with all
of his treasures dear.
All! that was the sOrest, saddest task that
ever / have known.
Christ! Thou who hast wept with weeping
ones, comfort and keep Thine own.
Thou who in moments of sorrow and pain,
thought of Thy mothers veal,
List to the cry of a hearts sore pain, listen
and comfort and heal.
Give Thy peace, which is perfect peace, lead
with Thine own right hand,
Till we join our beloved, to part no more, in
Thy beautiful, happy land.
-Hdzel Gordon. In Detroit Free Press.