ELIZA JANE PINE'S VERSES

Ah me! I’ll sit me down and write
A mournful tale: One luckless night
My brothers how they went away,
And left us to lament their stay.

Have you not heard the dreadful sound,
That eight dear souls that night were drowned;
Over the ferry just across,
Without wind or sail were lost?

Four of whom my brothers were,
Ah me how sad, oh, how severe!
None were there to see their grief,
None to give them swift relief!

How then were the youths adrowned?
None to hear a single sound;
How was it done? Ah, where was I,
Not to see, or hear their cry?

Oh, Robert was it hard to sink?
Thou’rt gone! Thou’rt gone! I’m left to think.
My James and Francis, did you see
The danger, and still could not flee?

Ah John, did you look round on them,
And see the flowers plucked from the stem?
Ah no! Ah no! Thou did’st not so,
Thou too art gone! Thou, too, did’st go!

Ah me! had one been left to tell
The tender sorrow, how they fell;
The more I think, it seems more hard,
Angels! were you not on your guard?

In the garden oft that night I went,
At last I weary went to bed;
I thought not of that sad event,
I never dreamed that they were dead.

The youths are flown,- the youths are flown,-
To dwell beneath another sky;
Their life, alas! on earth is done,
And we are left below to sigh!



Eliza Jane Pine, Exmouth, January 1837