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<h2> God Help Our Men at Sea </h2>
<p>
The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,<br/>
The black clouds follow fast,<br/>
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,<br/>
And the ships go heaving past, past, past—<br/>
The ships go heaving past!<br/>
Bar the doors, and higher, higher<br/>
Pile the faggots on the fire:<br/>
Now abroad, by many a light,<br/>
Empty seats there are to-night—<br/>
Empty seats that none may fill,<br/>
For the storm grows louder still:<br/>
How it surges and swells through the gorges and dells,<br/>
Under the ledges and over the lea,<br/>
Where a watery sound goeth moaning around—<br/>
God help our men at sea!<br/>
<br/>
Oh! never a tempest blew on the shore<br/>
But that some heart did moan<br/>
For a darling voice it would hear no more<br/>
And a face that had left it lone, lone, lone—<br/>
A face that had left it lone!<br/>
I am watching by a pane<br/>
Darkened with the gusty rain,<br/>
Watching, through a mist of tears,<br/>
Sad with thoughts of other years,<br/>
For a brother I did miss<br/>
In a stormy time like this.<br/>
Ah! the torrent howls past, like a fiend on the blast,<br/>
Under the ledges and over the lea;<br/>
And the pent waters gleam, and the wild surges scream—<br/>
God help our men at sea!<br/>
<br/>
Ah, Lord! they may grope through the dark to find<br/>
Thy hand within the gale;<br/>
And cries may rise on the wings of the wind<br/>
From mariners weary and pale, pale, pale—<br/>
From mariners weary and pale!<br/>
'Tis a fearful thing to know,<br/>
While the storm-winds loudly blow,<br/>
That a man can sometimes come<br/>
Too near to his father's home;<br/>
So that he shall kneel and say,<br/>
"Lord, I would be far away!"<br/>
Ho! the hurricanes roar round a dangerous shore,<br/>
Under the ledges and over the lea;<br/>
And there twinkles a light on the billows so white—<br/>
God help our men at sea!<br/></p>
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