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.