THE LAST SURVIVOR FROM THE

Beneath his pillow, hid away

From careless sight, the nurses say,

And safe from any stranger’ s view,

As miser might some treasure rare,

So does he guard, with jealous care,

A baby’ s shoe.

And evermore by day and night,

With burning eyeballs fever-bright,

This wan survivor of the sea

Scans each blank, closing wall in turn,

In dim endeavor to discern

If sail there be.

And then the weary sigh that slips

Suspiring from those parching lips

No heart may hear nor bleed therefor!

As, with hot tears that fall like rain,

He soothes a dying baby’ s pain

And o’ er and o’ er

Croons snatches of soft lullabies

To empty arms held cradle-wise.

— O human heart-break, love and grief!

God pity him in his distress,

Ev’ n as the sea was pitiless

Beyond belief!

God comfort, as with straining breath,

Unheeding either life or death,

Yet still with faint unwitting smile,

His fingers fondly seek and fold

The little sea-stained shoe, and hold

And stroke the while.