'The Song of the Wreck'

Description

From The Lighthouse (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins.

Creator

Dickens, Charles

Source

"Miscellaneous Papers." Volume 2. The Works of Charles Dickens. Volume 20 (1911). London: Chapman and Hall; 484-485, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=The%20song%20of%20the%20wreck.

Publisher

Chapman and Hall

Date

Type

Bibliographic Citation

Dickens, Charles. 'The Song of the Wreck' from The Lighthouse (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins. Printed in Volume 20 of The Works of Charles Dickens (1911). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_Wreck.

Transcription

The wind blew high, the waters raved,
A ship drove on the land,
A hundred human creatures saved
Kneel’d down upon the sand.
Three-score were drown’d, three-score were thrown
Upon the black rocks wild,
And thus among them, left alone,
They found one helpless child.

A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,
Stood out from all the rest,
And gently laid the lonely head
Upon his honest breast.
And travelling o’er the desert wide
It was a solemn joy,
To see them, ever side by side,
The sailor and the boy.

In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,
The two were still but one,
Until the strong man droop’d the first
And felt his labours done.
Then to a trusty friend he spake,
‘Across the desert wide,
O take this poor boy for my sake!’
And kiss’d the child and died.

Toiling along in weary plight
Through heavy jungle, mire,
These two came later every night
To warm them at the fire.
Until the captain said one day,
‘O seaman good and kind,
To save thyself now come away,
And leave the boy behind!’

The child was slumbering near the blaze:
‘O captain, let him rest
Until it sinks, when God’s own ways
Shall teach us what is best!”
They watch’d the whiten’d ashy heap,
They touch’d the child in vain;
They did not leave him there asleep,
He never woke again.

Files

Song of the Wreck The Lighthouse.png

Collection

Citation

Dickens, Charles, “'The Song of the Wreck',” Dickens Search, accessed March 29, 2024, https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_Wreck.

Transcribe This Item

  1. Song of the Wreck The Lighthouse.png