The Sea-Captain's Wyfe

Oh, my husband is a captain,
A commander of men,
And he’s sailed the great seas twice around.
Through the Straits Of Magellan,
And the Isle Of St. Helen,
But there’s one spot my husband’s yet found.

O, contemptible guile!
O, thou wee little isle
All afloat in the rose-petal sea.
Come you waves, lap my shore,
And I’ll quaver the more.
But my husband, he drifts to the lee.

Would to God that he found it.
But he sails all around it,
Tho’ it’s oftimes I’ve lent him a hand.
When his prow doth approach,
I’m a Cape Of Great Hope,
But all hope sinks like foam in the sand.

Shall I chart him a course?
Shall I argue that force
Only hastens the timid to hide?
How I envy you, shells,
Where the tidal pool swells,
For thy liquor’s delighted inside.

There’s a boy from this land,
And he’s hardly a man,
And yet “hardly’s” the thing that I crave.
When he lies by my side,
He invoketh my tides,
Ev’ry wave upon wave upon wave.

So good husband, off-hove!
Bring me nutmeg and cloves.
And I’ll pace by the banks of Tra-lee.
I’m an isle to no man,
Save the one whose command
Is the better commander than thee!