Athwart the slant rays of the sun Far off there glides a cloudland sail To faery shores. Our task is done - Our treasure won - a brimming pail. And no blithe argonaut e’er bore From legend’s quest a richer store! THE WATCHER A frail old lady bent and gray She gazes out into the west. To her it seems but yesterday He sailed away with eager zest “I pinned a rose upon his coat” She falters, clutching at her throat. A mariner he put to sea, Twas more than fifty years ago, The neighbors nod in sympathy, She cannot understand they know. What fancies throng her poor old head “My Robert lost? He can’t be dead.” And she is right. Her clearer eye Sees through the storms and stress of years, Full well she knows he did not die The rainbow glistens through her tears Enshrined within her heart in truth Her Robert lives in deathless youth. From her lone window on the shore She nightly sets a lamp to burn A beacon when the breakers roar To guide him on his safe return. No matter what the neighbors say These two shall meet again some day! THE SEA SHELL BOAT How now, little maid, in your bonnet arrayed With that quaint little shell in your hand! Not a shell but a boat? Ah, I see, let it float Far away from these mountains of sand. It will sail so I’m told, down the pathway of gold Where the sun paves the sea with its beams, To some fortunate isle where the skies ever smile Upon childhood’s endeavors and dreams. But, Honey, don’t cry if it sinks bye and bye Like a fluttering bird to its nest; For the wild waves at play in their blundering way, Like the oncoming years never rest. My hopes were aglow in the long, long ago When my own little ship left the shore; But my hair has grown grey since it drifted away And it never came back any more! [Illustration] FLOTSAM O flotsam stranded on the beach Half buried in the oozing sand, A sudden step, an outstretched hand, And you are snatched beyond the reach Of clutching waves. What brought you here From far off climes beyond the seas, The sport of every furtive breeze, A wanderer for many a year? What gulfs of ocean’s nether world Your paths have plumbed, I cannot know, To what abyss the Krakens go, Or where Leviathan was hurled. What current dark, I wonder, links Your lot with mine on this lone shore, - But there is only silence more Unbroken than the Memphian spinx.