This page has been validated.

WITH THE TIDE

To let such ill betide?
Oh, how do You dare to make us so,
And hurt us so?” I cried.


“If it was only my three dear lads,
Drown’d in a day, again:
Or the one wee lassie You made be born
For just that month o’ pain:
Or wring my life out, drop by drop,”
I said, “and I’ll not complain—


“But him, that I’ve seen to all these years,
An’ him that’s loved me so—
God! there is that atwixt us twain
Even You can scarcely know!
Oh, he’s mine!” I cried, “and I’ll keep him mine
And I will not let him go!”


. . . The still sea and sky stood there
Against me, like a wall.
The uncolour’d sea and sky they hung
Like a straight, seamless pall.
The faint wan waves, like breaths they rose,
Like dying breaths did fall.

72