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| THE AUTUMN day | |
| Rich in its regal beauty lay | |
| Over headland and beach and sea, | |
| And the voice of the waves sang dreamily | |
| A sweet, low tale to the listening ear; | 5 |
| A tale, as if never a breath of fear | |
| Or shadow of sorrow could cloud the blue, | |
| Or darken the sunlight glinting through | |
| The mellow air. It was fair, I ween, | |
| That autumn sunlight, that harbor scene, | 10 |
| As over the waves, that golden day, | |
| A trim bark sailed on its voyage away. | |
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| Gloucester town | |
| Lies where the winter sunbeams down | |
| On its roofs and spires are shining bright, | 15 |
| On the tall masts showing slim and bare, | |
| On Stage Head Battery, and where | |
| Gleams the tower of Ten Pound Island light; | |
| But never again to Gloucester town, | |
| Around the Point and up to the town, | 20 |
| Will the good bark glide, that sailed away | |
| In the dreamy hush of that autumn day. | |
| There are those who ’ll wait and watch and weep, | |
| And gaze afar o’er the heaving deep, | |
| And wish for the loved to come once more,— | 25 |
| For the bark to sail for Cape Ann’s shore. | |
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| Ah! none may know in the sea-girt town | |
| How or when that stanch bark went down; | |
| For those who within her sailed the main | |
| Never will come to port again. | 30 |
| Father of goodness and mercy, be | |
| With those who mourn for the lost at sea. | |
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