Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/379

O friends, you tell me no other arm
Like mine drew back from impending harm
The crowd who rushed from the blazing deck,
Or the crew who clung to the shattered wreck;
No other hand was so strong to save
The struggling souls from a watery grave;
No other dared like myself to grasp
Chill forms from the water's icy clasp,
Nor sacrificed on that sinking deck
Their life's young strength to a hopeless wreck!

Oh, tell me no more where another failed,
Where their strength gave way or their courage quailed;
There were fellow-men in that struggling storm,
With hope aglow and with life-blood warm
For perishing manhood and womanhood;
Did I do all that I could?
If one was lost whom I might have saved.
What care I for aught that I bore or braved,
If a human cry rung on the air,
That I might have calmed in its last despair?

Speak not of the few whom these hands have saved;
Tell not of the perils I met and braved;
The cries of the drowning disturb my rest,
Tell me, oh, this is my one request,
That no sinking soul on the waters tossed,
Whom I might have saved, was lost!
Oh, I can hear the drowning call,
I could not save them all.
They sink, I hear it, that sickening thud;
My God, did I do all that I could?

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