Calm gleamed the sea, calm gleamed the sky,
No cloud—no sail in view;
And they cast them lots, for who should die
To feed the starving crew!
Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild,
And their red-glazed eyes aglow,
And the death-lot fell on the little child
That slept in the cabin below!
And the mother shrieked in wild despair:
"O God, my child—my son.
They will take his life, it is hard to bear;
Yet, Father, Thy will be done."
And she waked the child from its happy sleep,
And she kneeled by the cradle bed;
"We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep;
We are dying, my child, for bread.
"On the lone, lone sea no sail—no breeze;
Not a drop of rain in the sky;
We thirst—we starve—on the lonely seas;
And thou, my child, must die!"
She wept: what tears her wild soul shed
Not I, but Heaven knows best.
And the child rose up from its cradle bed,
And crossed its hands on its breast:
"Father," he lisped, "so good, so kind,
Have pity on mother's pain:
For mother's sake, a little wind;
Father, a little rain!"
And she heard them shout for the child from the deck,
And she knelt on the cabin stairs:
"The child!" they cry, "the child—stand back—
And a curse on your idiot prayers!"
And the mother rose in her wild despair,
And she bared her throat to the knife:
"Strike—strike me—me; but spare, oh, spare
My child, my dear son's life!"
O God, it was a ghastly sight,—
Red eyes, like flaming brands,
And a hundred belt-knives flashing bright
In the clutch of skeleton hands!