“Gone with the Swan!”--“And did she stand With her anchor clutching hold of the sand, For a month and never stir?” “Why, to be sure! I’ve seen from the land Like a lover kissing his lady’s hand, The wild sea kissing her,-- A sight to remember, sir!”
“But, my good mother, do you know All this was twenty years ago? I stood on the Gray Swan’s deck, And to that lad I saw you throw (Taking it off, as it might be, so) The kerchief from your neck,”-- “Ay, and he’ll bring it back!”
“And did the little lawless lad, That has made you sick, and made you sad, Sail with the Gray Swan’s crew?” “Lawless! The man is going mad! The best boy mother ever had:-- Be sure he sailed with the crew! What would you have him do?”
“And he has never written line, Nor sent you word, nor made you sign, To say he was alive?” “Hold! if ’twas wrong, the wrong is mine; Besides, he may be in the brine; And could he write from the grave? Tut, man! What would you have?”
“Gone twenty years,--a long, long cruise, ’Twas wicked thus your love to abuse! But if the lad still live, And come back home, think you, you can Forgive him?”--“Miserable man! You’re mad as the sea; you rave,-- What have I to forgive?”
The sailor twitched his shirt of blue; And from within his bosom drew The kerchief. She was wild. “Oh God, my Father! is it true? My little lad, my Elihu! And is it--is it--is it you? My blessed boy, my child, My dead, my living child!”
_My heart leaps up when I behold_ _A rainbow in the sky:_ _So was it when my life began;_ _So is it now I am a man;_ _So be it when I shall grow old,_ _Or let me die!_ _The child is father of the man;_ _And I could wish my days to be_ _Bound each to each by natural piety._
“Tom,” cried Barnstable, starting, “there is the blow of a whale!”
“Ay, ay, sir!” returned the cockswain with undisturbed composure: “here is his spout, not half a mile to seaward. The easterly gale has driven the creature to leeward; and he begins to find himself in shoal water. He’s been sleeping while he should have been working to windward.”
“The fellow takes it coolly, too. He’s in no hurry to get an offing.”
“I rather conclude, sir,” said the cockswain, rolling over his tobacco in his mouth very composedly, while his little sunken eyes began to twinkle with pleasure at the sight, “the gentleman has lost his reckoning, and doesn’t know which way to head to take himself back into blue water.”