A young sailor has died and is buried on a hill above the bay, close to the sea he can no longer sail. The speaker describes someone on night watch who sees the boy’s ghost and, strangely, smiles, as if the two still keep each other company. Then the speaker reveals that the ghost also comes to him across the world. Instead of being frightened, he waits for the day he will die and join the dead sailor.
The mood is mournful but also strangely gentle. There is loneliness in the burial scene and in the slow steps of the mourner, but the imagined reunion turns loss into hope: together they will sail every sea and stand watch beside another boy. It feels like a friendship that death has changed but not ended.