University of Virginia Library

MY LIFE PUTS FORTH TO SEA ALONE.

My life puts forth to sea alone;
The skies are dark above;
All round I hear gray waters moan,—
Alas, for vanished love!

341

“O lonely life that presseth on
Across these wastes of years,—
Where are the guiding pilots gone,—
Whose is the hand that steers?”
The pilots they are left behind
Upon yon golden strand;
We drift before the driving wind;
We cannot miss the land,—
That land to which we hurry on
Across the angry years;
Hope being dead, and sweet Love gone,
There is no hand that steers.