  Beneath his pillow, hid away From careless sight, the nurses say, And safe from any stranger’s view, As miser might some treasure rare, So does he guard, with jealous care, A baby’s shoe. And evermore by day and night, With burning eyeballs fever-bright, This wan survivor of the sea Scans each blank, closing wall in turn, In dim endeavor to discern If sail there be. And then the weary sigh that slips Suspiring from those parching lips No heart may hear nor bleed therefor! As, with hot tears that fall like rain, He soothes a dying baby’s pain And o’er and o’er Croons snatches of soft lullabies To empty arms held cradle-wise. —O human heart-break, love and grief! God pity him in his distress, Ev’n as the sea was pitiless Beyond belief! Unheeding either life or death, Yet still with faint unwitting smile, His fingers fondly seek and fold The little sea-stained shoe, and hold And stroke the while.
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