Read "Afloat" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Once there was a boat, locked fast to a shore, / But rust ate the chain, day by day, / And the boat was loosened more and more, / As the fastenings slipped away. / Yet, any day, an outstretched hand, / Could have caught, and locked it again to land.
But never a hand was stretched to save, / And the boat at last was free; / And shot like an arrow over the wave, / And drifted out mid-sea. / And never, oh never, across the main, / Will the boat to the shore be brought again.
So was my heart, love -- linked to thine; / But neglect ate the chains away: / Yet a tender word love, I opine, / Would have saved it, any day. / Ay! a tender word, said first or last, / Would have mended the chain, and held it fast.
But the word was lacking: and so my heart, / Slipped from its chains, like the boat. / And then as the last link fell apart, / It sped o'er the waves -- afloat. / Nor pleading hands, nor words, you see, / Brings the boat to shore, or my heart to thee.