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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Sailor’s Return

By Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)

THIS morn I lay a-dreaming,

This morn, this merry morn;

When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,

I heard a bugle horn.

And through the dream I was dreaming,

There sighed the sigh of the sea,

And through the dream I was dreaming,

This voice came singing to me:—

“High over the breakers,

Low under the lee,

Sing ho!

The billow,

And the lash of the rolling sea!

“Boat, boat, to the billow,

Boat, boat, to the lee!

Love, on thy pillow,

Art thou dreaming of me?

“Billow, billow, breaking,

Land us low on the lee!

For sleeping or waking,

Sweet love, I am coming to thee!

“High, high, o’er the breakers,

Low, low, on the lee,

Sing ho!

The billow

That brings me back to thee!”