05/24/2025
"In ocean wastes no poppies blow. No crosses stand in ordered row. There young hearts sleep beneath the wave..."
They were lost with their ship, boat, or aircraft, succumbing to violent conflict with an enemy or vanquished by the awesome power of wind and wave. They perished alone or alongside shipmates. They were buried at sea with appropriate ceremony or doomed to descend to the bottom ever entombed with the ship that was their home and sanctuary.
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In Waters Deep
In ocean wastes no poppies blow,
No crosses stand in ordered row,
There young hearts sleep… beneath the wave…
The spirited, the good, the brave,
But stars a constant vigil keep,
For them who lie beneath the deep.
‘Tis true you cannot kneel in prayer
On certain spot and think. “He’s there.”
But you can to the ocean go…
See whitecaps marching row on row;
Know one for him will always ride…
In and out… with every tide.
And when your span of life is passed,
He’ll meet you at the “Captain’s Mast.”
And they who mourn on distant shore
For sailors who’ll come home no more,
Can dry their tears and pray for these
Who rest beneath the heaving seas…
For stars that shine and winds that blow
And whitecaps marching row on row.
And they can never lonely be
For when they lived… they chose the sea.
©2001 by Eileen Mahoney
Image: Coast Guardsmen aboard Coast Guard manned USS Callaway (APA-35) pay final respects to a lost shipmate prior to burial at sea, January, 1945 (Coast Guard photo)
