Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/200

 She cried so loud that her voice went in To find where my two friends were; So Morgan came, and Fingal came, And out we went with her. 'T was a lonely way for a man to take And a fearsome way for three; And over the water, and all day long, They had come for the night with me. But the girl was dead, as the woman had said, And the best we could see to do Was to lay her aboard. The north wind roared, And into the night we flew. Four of us living and one for a ghost, Furrowing crest and swell, Through the surge and the dark, for that faint far spark, We ploughed with Azrael. Three of us ruffled and one gone mad, Crashing to south we went; And three of us there were too spattered to care What this late sailing meant. So down we steered and along we tore Through the flash of the midnight foam : Silent enough to be ghosts on guard. We ferried the dead girl home. We ferried her down to the voiceless wharf, And we carried her up to the light; And we left the two to the father there, Who counted the coals that night.