(Note: In the early 70’s the hull of a boat, all overgrown with vines
and briers, was found at a place then known as Hungry Cove, on San
Jacinto Bay. The story of it was told me by an old boatman who had been
a settler of that section of the country for many years.)
Like the moan of a ghost that is doomed to rove,
Is the voice of the wind in Hungry Cove.
And the brier bites with a sharper thorn
Than the fang of hate, or the tooth of scorn.
And the twining vines are as cunningly set
As ever a poacher placed snare or net.
And the waves are hushed, and they move as slow
As fugitives making headway, tiptoe.
For Nature remembers, as well as Man,
The time and the place, and the Mary Ann.
The time, man-measured, was long ago,
Some seventy fleeting years, or so.
The place, where the sea was with light agleam,
And the shore shone white as a maiden’s dream.
And the Mary Ann—how a prayer prevailed!—
Was the name of the boat that never sailed.
For the men who built it, a blackguard twain,
Had taken a maiden’s pure name in vain.
And she prayed that for taunts, and for many mocks,
The boat would not move from its building blocks.
But the builders laughed at the maiden’s prayer,
And spit on her name they had painted there.
And they swore, in defiance of God and man,
They would launch the boat they had named Mary Ann.
But when they stood ready at stern and stem,
The boat fell down on the heads of them.
And no one came to where crushed they lay,
And no one will come until judgment day.
For their guards are briers with thorns that bite
With a pain as keen as the sting of spite.
And their only dirge is the song of the loon,
When the sea is black, in the dark of the moon.