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| THE TRAINING-SHIP Eurydice— | |
| As tight a craft, I ween, | |
| As ever bore brave men who lov’d | |
| Their country and their queen— | |
| Built when a ship, sir, was a ship, | 5 |
| And not a steam-machine. | |
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| Six months or more she had been out | |
| Cruising the Indian sea; | |
| And now, with all her canvas bent— | |
| A fresh breeze blowing free— | 10 |
| Up Channel in her pride she came, | |
| The brave Eurydice. | |
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| On Saturday it was we saw | |
| The English cliffs appear, | |
| And fore and aft, from man and boy, | 15 |
| Uprang one mighty cheer; | |
| While many a rough-and-ready hand | |
| Dash’d off the gathering tear. | |
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| We saw the heads of Dorset rise | |
| Fair in the Sabbath sun; | 20 |
| We mark’d each hamlet gleaming white, | |
| The church spires, one by one; | |
| We thought we heard the church bells ring | |
| To hail our voyage done. | |
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| “Only an hour from Spithead, lads: | 25 |
| Only an hour from home!” | |
| So sang the captain’s cheery voice | |
| As we spurn’d the ebbing foam; | |
| And each young sea-dog’s heart sang back | |
| “Only an hour from home!” | 30 |
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| No warning ripple crisp’d the wave | |
| To tell of danger nigh; | |
| Nor looming rack, nor driving scud— | |
| From out a smiling sky, | |
| With sound as of the trump of doom, | 35 |
| The squall broke suddenly. | |
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| A hurricane of wind and snow | |
| From off the Shanklin shore; | |
| It caught us in its blinding whirl | |
| One instant, and no more; | 40 |
| For, ere we dream’d of trouble near, | |
| All earthly hope was o’er. | |
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| No time to shorten sail,—no time | |
| To change the vessel’s course; | |
| The storm had caught her crowded masts | 45 |
| With swift, resistless force. | |
| Only one shrill, despairing cry | |
| Rose o’er the tumult hoarse. | |
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| And broadside the great ship went down, | |
| Amid the swirling foam; | 50 |
| And with her nigh four hundred men | |
| Went down, in sight of home, | |
| (Fletcher and I alone were sav’d) | |
| Only an hour from home! | |
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