"It _was_ a gale the day we put out. We had to get out--in Charleston
Harbor it was--and they were hot after us--gale or no gale, Captain
Blaise put out. I'm trying to imagine what she would think when she
heard.

"'And now no spray is in my eyes,
No hand is waved to me--
But all the gales of time shall blow
Ere he comes back from sea!'"

"And she a bride! Oh-h, the poor girl!" She had leaned over my shoulder
to read it for herself, and her breath was on my cheek.

"That is why, if I had--a wife, I should dread the sea."

"And that is why a woman--But how long have you been writing poetry?"

"Poetry? Or rhyme? Never before the day I saw you."

"But when did such ideas before take hold of you?"

"The other night I was lying here looking up, and after a time the moon
shone through onto my cot, and you crossed its path--you had given me my
night cup and I had pretended to be asleep; and I thought of you looking
out on the moonlit sea and I got to wondering what you were thinking of.
And I remembered a thousand such moonlit nights when you were not there.
And I thought what a difference it would have made had you been there,
and so when I say

"'The Western Ocean smiled that night--Sweetheart,