Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3861, 14 May 1881, Page 1

Select Poetry.

THE WHITBY SMACK.

" She ought to be in, >he ought to be in. HweVinotker moon began f She i«iled, iMt Friday m« w«»k t And it it but a four days' run.

" IV left my Jane at home, She'll nor sleep nor bite, poor last 5 Just ton her wedding clothes about, And iUre at the falling glaia.

"the banns were out hut week, you gee; And to-day—alack, •lack, Young George hu other gvir to mind, Out there, oat there in the smseltl

" I bade her dry her tear*, Or share them with another, And go down yonder court and try To comfort Willies mother.

■•• Th? poor old widow'd »oul, Laid helpless in her bed ; Sn« Prasß fo' the touch of her one eon's hand, The sound of his cheery tread.

« She ought to be in, her timbers are stoat; Sbe would ride through the roughest gale, Well found and nam'd—but the, hours drag on ; -: ; .■■•.-. It was but a four days sail." . ■

Gravely and sadly the sailor spoke, Out on the great Ker head ; Budden a broiiz'd old fishwife turned, From the anxious group and said,

" Jenny will find her lorers anew; And Anne has one foot; in the graro; We've lived together twenty year, fand my poor old Dare.

" I've a rumlet of whisley fresh for him And 'bacra again he comes back, He said he'd bide this winter ashore, After the trip in the s rack.

" We hare neither ohick nor child of us Our John was drowned last year ; There is nothing on earth but Dare for me, Why there's nought in the wind to fear.

•' He's been out on many a coarser sea, I'll set the fire alight; We said ' Our Father ' before he went; The smack will be in to-night."

And just as down in the westward The light roue pale and thin, With her bulwarks store, and her foresail gone,

The smack came staggering in.

With one worn face at her rudder,

And another betide her mast, Bat George, and Willie, and staunch old Dare?

Why—atk the wave and the blast.

Atk the sea that broke aboard her, . Just as ; sbe swung her round, Ask" the squall that swept above her, With death in its ominous sound.

" The master saw," the sailor raid, " A facexpast the gunwale go; And Jack heard " Jane" ring shrill through tbe roar: And that is all we know." '

I can't tell. Parson says grief is wrong, And pining is wilful sin ; But I'd like to hear how those two died, Before tbe smack came in.

Well, this morning the flags fly half mast head, In beautiful Whitby Bay; That's all we shall know till the roll it read, At the last great Muster-day. —All the Year Round.