Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/24

 Who with a simple line of sand Restrains its wrathful tide, And lays his finger on its mane, To quell its fiercest pride.

High words of solemn prayer Each listening spirit stir, And by the fair young babe knelt down The wrinkled mariner, On couch and mattrass rang'd around, The sick forgot their grief, And caught the lore of Heaven, as drinks Its dew, the thirsting leaf.

Sad Erin's ardent sons Up from the steerage came, And in their warm response invoked Jehovah's awful name; And little children gathered near, Blest in their guileless years, Hands folded close, and lips apart, And thoughts that move to tears.