The Captain’s Well
From pain and peril, by land and main,
The shipwrecked sailor came back again;
And like one from the dead, the threshold cross'd
Of his wondering home, that had mourned him lost.
Where he sat once more with his kith and kin,
And welcomed his neighbors thronging in.
But when morning came he called for his spade.
'I must pay my debt to the Lord,' he said.
'Why dig you here?' asked the passer-by;
'Is there gold or silver the road so nigh?'
'No, friend,' he answered: 'but under this sod
Is the blessed water, the wine of God.'
'Water! the Powow is at your back,
And right before you the Merrimac,
'And look you up, or look you down,
There 's a well-sweep at every door in town.'
'True,' he said, 'we have wells of our own;
But this I dig for the Lord alone.'
Said the other: 'This soil is dry, you know.
I doubt if a spring can be found below;
'You had better consult, before you dig,
Some water-witch, with a hazel twig.'
'No, wet or dry, I will dig it here,
Shallow or deep, if it takes a year.
'In the Arab desert, where shade is none,
The waterless land of sand and sun,
'Under the pitiless, brazen sky
My burning throat as the sand was dry;
'My crazed brain listened in fever dreams
For plash of buckets and ripple of streams;
'And opening my eyes to the blinding glare,
And my lips to the breath of the blistering air,
'Tortured alike by the heavens and earth,
I cursed, like Job, the day of my birth.
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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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