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| O SAILORS, did sweet eyes look after you, | |
| The day you sailed away from sunny Spain? | |
| Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew, | |
| Melting in tender rain? | |
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| Did no one dream of that drear night to be, | 5 |
| Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow, | |
| When, on yon granite point that frets the sea, | |
| The ship met her death-blow? | |
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| Fifty long years ago these sailors died: | |
| None know how many sleep beneath the waves; | 10 |
| Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side, | |
| Point out their nameless graves,— | |
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| Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me, | |
| And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry, | |
| And sadder winds, and voices of the sea | 15 |
| That moans perpetually. | |
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| Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain | |
| Questioned the distance for the yearning sail, | |
| That, leaning landward, should have stretched again | |
| White arms wide on the gale, | 20 |
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| To bring back their beloved. Year by year, | |
| Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed, | |
| And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near, | |
| And hope was dead at last. | |
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| Still summer broods o’er that delicious land, | 25 |
| Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow: | |
| Live any yet of that forsaken band | |
| Who loved so long ago? | |
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| O Spanish women, over the far seas, | |
| Could I but show you where your dead repose! | 30 |
| Could I send tidings on this northern breeze, | |
| That strong and steady blows! | |
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| Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet | |
| These you have lost, but you can never know | |
| One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet | 35 |
| With thinking of your woe! | |
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