Our Sailor

Oh yes, he came again! But 'twas not he.
A youth no longer ours, nay, taller, older;
A serious young ensign, stern, yet gay;
Shy as the sea-bird, driven by a storm
Into the doorway of a fisher's hut,
Who proudly suffers every fond caress,
And loves the warmth and welcome; but his eye
Roves the tempestuous billows of that world
To which his life takes wing. At eventide
He fluttered in, and with the earliest dawn
His form had vanished o'er the vaporous sea.