"And as to catch the gale Mid-ships with iron keel As with his wings aslant Bore I the maiden. "Three weeks we westward bore, There from my lady's bowe Which to this very hour Stands looking seaward. "There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes. Ne'er shall the sun arise "Still grew my bosom then, The sunlight hateful! Oh, death was grateful! "Thus seamed with many scars, Bursting these prison-bars. For I can weather the roughest gale He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat He cut a rope from a broken spar, "O father! I hear the church bells ring; "Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"— "O father! I hear the sound of guns; "O father! I see a gleaming light; But the father answered never a word, 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 And fast through the midnight, dark and drear, And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf The breakers were right beneath her bows, And a whooping billow swept the crew She struck where the white and fleecy waves But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach To see the form of a maiden fair The salt sea was frozen on her breast, And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, Christ save us all from a death like this, MISCELLANEOUS. EXCELSIOR. THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath In happy homes he saw the light Of household fires gleam warm and bright; Above, the spectral glaciers shone, And from his lips escaped a groan, Excelsior! |