The wife in the cot is lonely
Since the fisher went away,
And the sun-burnt child it hath not smil’d
This many and many a day.
And the schools of mack’rel come unscared
To the shoals of the inner bay.
For the fisherman said one spring-time:
“Dear wife, I have set my sail
These twenty years to the northern meres,
The icebergs, the mist and gale,
And my country hath paid the shot, good wife,
However I chanced to fail.”
“Yes, paid for my sailor’s knowledge,
And the skill of my ready hand;
And the blue on my arm, as a sacred charm,
Is the flag that guards the land.
The time has come to pay that debt,
Tho’ my life it should demand.”
So bravely the loyal fisher
Sailed for the southern sea,
Never a hook nor a bait he took
For the deadly fishery;
But the staunchest man at the straining rope
In the northerner was he.
On the bloody deck of the _Hartford_
At last the fisher lay,
The azure charm pricked on his arm
Was striped with red that day;
And his debt of twenty years was paid
With a life in Mobile Bay.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]