Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/71

Rh They cried and prayed, and we gave 'em a cheer,
 * In the thoughtless way of men;

God help them, shipmates—thirty years
 * They've waited and prayed since then.

"We sailed to the North, and I mind it well.
 * The pity we felt, and pride

When we sighted the cliffs of Labrador
 * From the sea where Hudson died.

We talked of ships that never came back,
 * And when the great floes passed,

Like ghosts in the night, each moonlit peak
 * Like a great war frigate's mast,

'Twas said that a ship was frozen up
 * In the iceberg's awful breast.

The clear ice holding the sailor's face
 * As he lay in his mortal rest.

And I've thought since then, when the ships came home
 * That sailed for the Franklin band,

A mistake was made in the reckoning
 * That looked for the crews on land.