C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

D’Avalos’ Prayer

From ‘Salt-Water Ballads’

WHEN the last sea is sailed and the last shallow charted,

When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored,

When the last fire is out and the last guest departed,

Grant the last prayer that I shall pray, Be good to me, O Lord!

And let me pass in a night at sea, a night of storm and thunder,

In the loud crying of the wind through sail and rope and spar;

Send me a ninth great peaceful wave to drown and roll me under

To the cold tunny-fishes’ home where the drowned galleons are.

And in the dim green quiet place far out of sight and hearing,

Grant I may hear at whiles the wash and thresh of the sea-foam

About the fine keen bows of the stately clippers steering

Towards the lone northern star and the fair ports of home.