She sees the bay, the waves' deep voice she hears,
And babbles of the forms that are no more.

They are the dead, long laid in foreign graves,
One with his sword upon his loyal breast,
And one in tropic lands beneath the palm;
The sea rolls dark between those hemispheres,
And all the long procession of the years,
Since last those warm young hands she fondly pressed,
And heard through mute farewells the funeral psalm,
The "nevermore" of the dividing waves.

The record of a life is writ between;
The new world's story supplements the old;
The heathery hills, the rapture of the morn,
The fishers' huts, the chieftain's castle gray,
And the smooth crescent of the land-locked bay,--
These, the long hunger of the heart outworn,
New scenes replace, and the once strange and cold,
Become like those kept in the memory green.

But thou hast found already that dread place,
And thy lost loved ones in that unknown goal,
Ere thou hast quite put off the scrip and shell,
And gathered up thy feet into the bed,
And closed thine eyes, the last prayers being said,
Thy lips move dumbly, thy delaying soul
Passes in salutation, not farewell,
To join the heroes of thine ancient race.