THE SHIPS OF THE SEA

By Cale Young Rice

Into port when the sun was setting

Rode the ship that bore my love,

Over the breakers wildly fretting,

Under the skies that shone above.

Down to the beach I ran to meet him;

He would come as he had said:

And he came — in a sailor's coffin,

Dead!...

O the ships of the sea! the women

They from all hope but Heaven part!

The tide has nothing now to tell me,

The breakers only break my heart!