John Jay Chapman

Our Sailor

OH yes, he came again! But 'twas not he. A youth no longer ours, nay, taller, older; A serious young ensign, stern, yet gay; Shy as the sea-bird, driven by a storm Into the doorway of a fisher's hut, Who proudly suffers every fond caress, And loves the warmth and welcome; but his eye Roves the tempestuous billows of that world To which his life takes wing. At eventide He fluttered in, and with the earliest dawn His form had vanished o'er the vaporous sea.