River of Tears

This is the story of a Sea Captain’s ghost in mourning. He longs to touch his wife once more but she cannot feel him nor see him. Therefore, he cries a river of tears just as the title implies.

If within my heart hope is near,

That a sound should lure it forth again:

If in my eyes there waits a tear,

It will gush, and begin to burn like sin,

But extend the strain be wild and deep,

Nor let the notes of joy be first:

I tell the wretched, I must weep,

Or else my heavy heart will burst;

For it has been by mourning cursed,

And ached in sleepless silence,

Long; and now it is doomed to know the worst,

And break at once--or succumb to a song,

A song she sang to me when the waters were faire--

A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay,

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Abandoned ships lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down, by hand of force, not will;

As they dropped they slept inside the abyss

Without a heave, the waters were still;

The tides were in their watery grave,

The Moon, the mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered, sank the putrid moor,

And the clouds perished like the falling sun!

Darkness needed neither a friend nor brethren.

She was my WORLD! my VECTOR! and now she is gone;

My soul is dark--black as the sun,

The harp I yet can’t wait to hear;

And let her gentle fingers sing

Its graceful beauty within my ear.

A murder of ravens on eve’s wing,

The smite of Heaven to which I fear.

Violent as the raging sky,

This river of tears, I persist to cry.