The Sailor's Wife Speaks

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Title:     The Sailor's Wife Speaks
Author: Don Marquis [More Titles by Marquis]

YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore,
Ye would come to me back from the sea!
From out of the sea and the night, ye cried,
Nor the crawling weed nor the dragging tide
Could hold ye fast from me:--
Come, ah, come to me!

Three spells I have laid on the rising sun
And three on the waning moon--
Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day
Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away!
Ye must come where I wait ye, soon--
Ah, soon! soon! soon!

Three times I have cast my words to the wind,
And thrice to the climbing sea;
If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam
Ye must drift again home, ye must drift again home--

Wraith, ye are free, ye are free;
Ghost, ye are free, ye are free!

Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair?
But I wait ye here on the shore!
It is I that ye hear in the calling wind--
I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind!
O lover of mine, ye swore,
Lover of mine, ye swore!

[The end]
Don Marquis's poem: Sailor's Wife Speaks

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