Classic Poem

Tom Cassidy is drownded—
That God may keep his soul.
His body floats in the deep cold sea,
An' only the herring and mackerel shoal
Can tell where Tom may be.
May Christ have pity on his soul,—
An' that He'll pity me.

Tom threatened that he'd bring me
Strange shells from foreign sands,
An' Chiney silk that would make a gown,
With three ostrich feathers from foreign lands
All creamy white and brown.
My grief! I stand with empty hands,
An' him and all gone down.

There's none can ever tell me
How long he may have striven
With the cold black waves that choked his life,
An' him with the sins on his soul unshriven,
In that his mortal strife.
God's mercy on the unforgiven,
And me his promised wife.

My curse upon the ocean,
My curse upon the wind!
That's taken my heart's bright core on me,
An' made him a sepulchre none can find
But them that's in the sea.
Why would they leave the old behind
And take the young and free?