A sailor leaned o'er the vessel's side,
And gazed in the rippling sea—
"Christ save us!" said he, and started back,
"A shark swims under the lee."

His comrades looked close under the lee,
With a fixed and glassy stare;
They saw a fin and a glittering back
Now sink, and now rise in air.

Ho! bait a strong line, the captain cried,
Then muttered a passing curse;
For the greedy shark still followed on,
Like mourner the gloomy herse.

All day, all night, the daintiest bait
Towed close to the shark's fell jaw—
"He follows the ship, and not the bait!"
"Yet," quoth Ned, "he'll fill his maw."

The sick man lay on his restless bed,
A fever had scorched his brain;
While the hot blood gushed in lava tides,
And hissed through each bursting vein.

Black Edward leaned o'er the sick man's bed,
And glared on his enemy;
His head, like a coiléd snake, he bent—
"A shark swims under the lee!"

Great God, but it was a fearful thing
To hear the poor sufferer rave!
To see the red flushes come and go,
Like sun-beams over the wave!

And ever he muttered in low tones
Of the bitterest agony,
While his heart boomed like a tolling bell,
"A shark swims under the lee!"

He bounded up from his narrow bed,
And fell on his bended knee;
"Christ save me," cried he, and loudly wept,
"From the shark under the lee!"

Black Edward laughed o'er the vessel's side
As the sun set bloody red;
The shark lept up as for very joy—
Quoth one, "The sick man is dead."

They poised the corse o'er the rushing waves;
Alas! how their spirits sank!
"Don't throw him," they cried, "to yonder shark!"
Black Ned kicked over the plank.

With a bound sprang forth the greedy shark,
And his horrid jaws upraised,
He tore the shroud like a rotten rag—
The crew in pale horror gazed.

He dragged the torn body from the shroud,
And the sea was red with gore—
"God shield us!" they cried, and closed their eyes;
But the shark was ne'er seen more.

There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder that her brown study
Astonishes us all.

Her wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond,
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass,
Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple dreams, and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready;
In one house we are sternly stopped
To say we are vexed at her brown study,
Lying so primly propped.