"The Song of the Wreck" Charles Dickens

The wind blew high, the waters raved,

      A ship drove on the land,

A hundred human creatures saved

      Kneel’d down upon the sand.

Three-score were drown’d, three-score were thrown

      Upon the black rocks wild,

And thus among them, left alone,

      They found one helpless child.

A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,

      Stood out from all the rest,

And gently laid the lonely head

      Upon his honest breast.

And travelling o’er the desert wide

      It was a solemn joy,

To see them, ever side by side,

      The sailor and the boy.

In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,

      The two were still but one,

Until the strong man droop’d the first

      And felt his labours done.

Then to a trusty friend he spake,

      “Across the desert wide,

O take this poor boy for my sake!”

      And kiss’d the child and died.

Toiling along in weary plight

      Through heavy jungle, mire,

These two came later every night

      To warm them at the fire.

Until the captain said one day,

      “O seaman good and kind,

To save thyself now come away,

      And leave the boy behind!”

The child was slumbering near the blaze:

      “O captain, let him rest

Until it sinks, when God’s own ways

      Shall teach us what is best!”

They watch’d the whiten’d ashy heap,

      They touch’d the child in vain;

They did not leave him there asleep,

      He never woke again.