GUMMAN GRO
(Note: Gumman Gro is phonetic Swedish for “The Woman Gray.” Skell, master of Sweet Cecilia, was a Swede; he and his boat disappeared from Galveston Bay one night and were never heard of again.)
They said that Gumman Gro had a great store
Of private treasure hid in Lone Tree Cove;
That she with cunning eyes watched sea and shore,
And that a curse was upon all who strove,
Always in vain, to cross the line afar
That she had marked outside of shoal and bar.
And it was said that many who had rushed
Upon the Cove with favoring wind and tide,
Had come away with heart and spirit crushed,
Bereft of courage and of manly pride,
To live their lives perpetual exiles,
Beyond the reach of cheering songs and smiles.
And so the boatmen, sailing up and down,
From Lone Tree Cove would sheer their boats away;
For on the shore a small hut loomed up brown,
And in the doorway stood a woman gray;
Whence she had come, or when, none seemed to know,
But Skell, the boatman, named her Gumman Gro.
And Skell would laugh the hearty laugh that springs
Straight from the hearts of men when young and strong,
While with a merry jest at men and things
He sailed his course, and hummed a seaman’s song;
Oft in passing Lone Tree Cove he’d sheer
His boat more close, and shout a word of cheer.
Then one dark night a storm swept o’er the bay,
And the mosquito fleet was scattered wide;
And many men and boats until this day
Have not returned to watch for wind and tide;
And ’mong the missing ones that all loved well,
Was Sweet Cecilia, and her master, Skell.
Often on nights when winds and tides are fair,
On nights of calm, when God’s stars search the deep,
Sounds from afar, like multitudes in prayer,
Across the waters to lone boatmen creep,
And then they see the dead sail to and fro,
But none knows whence they come, or where they go.
After the storm, when winds came from the west
On nights like these, Skell’s ghost from Lone Tree Cove
Set sail, so seamen saw; then on Skell pressed
To shun the shoals; straight out for the deep he drove,
But just so far he came, and then he stopped,
As if an anchor sternward had been dropped.
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Then from the shore a cry, half laugh, half pain,
Mocking and pleading, rose, and dipped, and fell,
Stirring the waters like a shower of rain,
While Sweet Cecilia, and her master, Skell,
A moment wavered like a light wind blown,
Then flashed across the darkness and were gone.
Thus every night, when out of sunset land
The warm winds came and drowsed upon the bay,
Skell and his Sweet Cecilia left the strand,
And sailed and sailed as if to sail away;
And every night that cry, half laugh, half pain,
Would pleading come and call him back again.
This is the tale that old-time boatmen told,
One to the other, long, long years ago;
But not the greediest for shining gold
Would risk the fearful curse of Gumman Gro—
He’d hope, at last, whatever else befell,
Death would not land him where it landed Skell.
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