Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/64

60 With flowers and tall green trees; bat when they asked What did the shipmen then, his mind was tasked Beyond its strength, and Jacob shook his head, And with them laughed, for all he knew was said.

The brawny sawyers often ceased their toil, As Jacob with the children passed, to smile With rugged pity on their simple play; Then, gazing after the glad group, would say How strange it was to see that snowy hair And time-worn figure with the children fair.

So Jacob Eibsen lived through years of joy,— A patriarch in age, in heart a boy. Unto the last he told them of the sea And white-sailed ship; and ever lovingly, Unto the end, the garden he had made He tended daily, 'neath the tuads' shade.

But one bright morning, when the children came And roused the echoes calling Jacob's name,