as they say;
Was it worth all this yearning, and weeping, and strife
When you left it behind you to-day?

"Will it end all this watching, and doubting, and dread?
Do these sorrows die out with our breath?
Will they pass from our souls like a nightmare," I said,
"While we glide through the mazes of Death?

"Come out of that darkness and teach me the lore
You have learned since I looked on your face;
By the summers that blossomed and faded of yore--
By the lights which have fled to that place!

"You answer me not when I know that you could--
When I know that you could and you should;
Though the storms be abroad on the wave;
Though the rain droppeth down with a wail to the wood,
And my heart is as cold as your grave!"

God Help Our Men at Sea

The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,
The black clouds follow fast,
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,
And the ships go heaving past, past, past--
The ships go heaving past!
Bar the doors, and higher, higher
Pile the faggots on the fire:
Now abroad, by many a light,
Empty seats there are to-night--
Empty seats that none may fill,
For the storm grows louder still:
How it surges and swells through the gorges and dells,
Under the ledges and over the lea,
Where a watery sound goeth moaning around--
God help our men at sea!

Oh! never a tempest blew on the shore
But that some heart did moan
For a darling voice it would hear no more
And a face that had left it lone, lone, lone--
A face that had left it lone!
I am watching by a pane
Darkened with the gusty rain,
Watching, through a mist of tears,
Sad with thoughts of other years,
For a brother I did miss
In a stormy time like this.
Ah! the torrent howls past, like a fiend on the blast,
Under the ledges and over the lea;
And the pent waters gleam, and the wild surges scream--
God help our men at sea!

Ah, Lord! they may grope through the dark to find
Thy hand within the gale;
And cries may rise on the wings of the wind
From mariners weary and pale, pale, pale--
From mariners weary and pale!
'Tis a fearful thing to know,
While the storm-winds loudly blow,
That a man can sometimes come
Too near to his father's home;
So that he shal