MY SHIPS HAVE COME FROM SEA.

You are watching a ship, O, maiden fair,

With parted lips and wistful air,

The ship that out from the sheltered bay

With white sails spread moves slow away;

And I know, my girl, the thoughts that burn

In your heart are of ship's return.

Ah! I know so well how your pulses beat,

With the great sea sobbing at your feet;

And the yellow stars in southern skies

Are brighter not than your love-bright eyes.

I, too, have stood on the sea-wet sand

And tearful waved a farewell hand,

And watched with many a longing prayer.

My face, like yours, was young and fair,

And my eyes were bright as the diamond's glow;

They've lost their sparkle — long ago.

I stand along on the beach to-day,

Watching the ships that sail away;

But never a sail from over the sea

The flowing tide will bring to me,

My ships have come from sea.

The first was builded with childish hand,

It floated away a castle grand —

A beautiful bubble with rainbow hues,

Lined with the crystal of morning dews;

To break at my feet by the sunny sea,

A beautiful bubble came back to me —

Came back from my ship at sea.

I fashioned another in gladsome way

And sent it forth on a Summer day.

I see it yet, a fairer craft,

Never at danger mocking laughed;

Its shrouds were the sheen of happy hours,

Its helm a wreath of orange flowrs;

And I freighted it down with love and truth,

The golden hopes of my sunny youth.

Had it lived the storm — but it could not be,

A stranded wreck on the surf-washed lea,

My ship came home from sea.

And then a smiling fairy bark,

A fragile, precious-freighted ark,

Out on life's ocean drear and dark.

And I prayed to God as I never before,

To shield this back from the tempest's roar,

To spare me this — but it could not be,

A tiny coffin came back to me —

Came back from my ship at sea.

With reckless hand I launched again,

A venture on the treacherous main,

Bound for ambition's dizzy court;

Sailed from a hopeless, loveless port;

With gloomy walls whose silence chilled,

With ghostly haunting memories filled,

With never a breath of the roses dead;

Never a rest for a weary head,

Never a dream of a sweet to be,

Hopeless, loveless still, to me,

My ship came home from sea.

The last, and least, of all the ships

Fashioned with hands, and heart, and lips,

I pushed from shore with its decks untrod

And the freight it bore was my faith in God.

I recked not whither its way, nor when,

Nor how, if ever,‘ twould come again,

And this, alone, came back to me,

Rich-laden from the stormy sea.

And so, sweet maiden, while your dreams

Paint fairest all that fairest seems,

I stand with you and watch to-day

The ship that sails form the shore away;

But never a sail from over the sea

The flowing tide will bring to me —

My ships have come from sea.