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Title: The Cod-Fisher
Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln [
More Titles by Lincoln]
Where leap the long Atlantic swells
In foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,
Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,
And flings the spindrift down the gale;
Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,
The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,
With steadfast front for calm or blast
His battered schooner rocks and heaves.
_To same the gain, to some the loss,
To each the chance, the risk, the fight:
For men must die that men may live--
Lord, may we steer our course aright._.
The dripping deck beneath him reels,
The flooded scuppers spout the brine;
He heeds them not, he only feels
The tugging of a tightened line.
The grim white sea-fog o'er him throws
Its clammy curtain, damp and cold;
He minds it not--his work he knows,
'T is but to fill an empty hold.
Oft, driven through the night's blind wrack,
He feels the dread berg's ghastly breath,
Or hears draw nigh through walls of black
A throbbing engine chanting death;
But with a calm, unwrinkled brow
He fronts them, grim and undismayed,
For storm and ice and liner's bow--
These are but chances of the trade.
Yet well he knows--where'er it be,
On low Cape Cod or bluff Cape Ann--
With straining eyes that search the sea
A watching woman waits her man:
He knows it, and his love is deep,
But work is work, and bread is bread,
And though men drown and women weep
The hungry thousands must be fed.
_To some the gain, to some the loss_,
_To each his chance, the game with Fate_:
_For men must die that men may live_--
_Dear Lord, be kind to those who wait_.
[The end]
Joseph Crosby Lincoln's poem: Cod-Fisher
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