10

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS 1

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

It was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughtër,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,2

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old sailör,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,3

"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And tonight no moon we see !”

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,

And a scornful laugh laughed he.

1. It will be noted that in many respects this poem is like "Sir Patrick Spence."

2. Fairy-flax. The blossom of the flax is blue.

3. Spanish Main. The portion of the Caribbean Sea along the northern coast of South America; at first the name was applied to the land.

Colder and colder blew the wind,

A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,

And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain

The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring; Oh, say, what may it be?"

"'Tis a fog bell on a rock-bound coast!”And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns;
Oh, say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light; Oh, say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word,

A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,

With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.4

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;

Like a vessel of glass, she strove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

4. Norman's Woe. A reef in West Gloucester Harbor, Mass.

At daybreak on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,

The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

11

LOCHINVAR

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none.
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He stayed not for brake,1 and he stopped not for stone;
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late;
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

1. Brake. Thicket; brushwood.

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,

'Mong bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ?"

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ;-
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up:
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar,—
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard 2 did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whispered, "Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall door and the charger stood

near;

So light to the croupe3 the fair lady he swung,

So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

2. Galliard. An old gay and lively dance.

3. Croupe. The portion of a horse's back behind the saddle.