Page:Lost Galleon (1867).djvu/39

Rh They stood and gazed for a little space

Down on his pallid and care-worn face,

And a smile of scorn went round the band

As they touched alternate with foot and hand

This mortal waif, that the outer space

Of dim mysterious sky and sand

Flung with so little of Christian grace

Down on their barren, sterile strand.

Said one to him: "It seems thy god

Is a very pitiful kind of god;

He could not shield thine aching eyes

From the blowing desert sands that rise,

Nor turn aside from thy old gray head

The glittering blade that is brandishéd

By the sun he set in the heavens high.

He could not moisten thy lips when dry;

The desert fire is in thy brain;

Thy limbs are racked with the fever-pain:

If this be the grace he sheweth thee

Who art his servant, what may we,