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Wreck of the Hesperus

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<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2 class="left_2"><SPAN name="THE_WRECK_OF_THE_HESPERUS" id="THE_WRECK_OF_THE_HESPERUS"> <i>THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS</i></SPAN></h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">It was the schooner Hesperus,</span> <span class="i2">That sailed the wintry sea;</span> <span class="i0">And the skipper had taken his little daughter,</span> <span class="i2">To bear him company.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,</span> <span class="i2">Her cheeks like the dawn of day,</span> <span class="i0">And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,</span> <span class="i2">That ope in the month of May.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The skipper he stood beside the helm,</span> <span class="i2">His pipe was in his mouth,</span> <span class="i0">And he watched how the veering flaw did blow</span> <span class="i2">The smoke now West, now South.</span> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then up and spake an old sailòr,</span> <span class="i2">Had sail’d the Spanish Main,</span> <span class="i0">’I pray thee, put into yonder port,</span> <span class="i2">For I fear a hurricane.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘Last night, the moon had a golden ring,</span> <span class="i2">And to-night no moon we see!’</span> <span class="i0">The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,</span> <span class="i2">And a scornful laugh laughed he.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Colder and louder blew the wind,</span> <span class="i2">A gale from the North-east;</span> <span class="i0">The snow fell hissing in the brine,</span> <span class="i2">And the billows frothed like yeast.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Down came the storm, and smote amain</span> <span class="i2">The vessel in its strength;</span> <span class="i0">She shudder’d and paused, like a frighted steed,</span> <span class="i2">Then leap’d her cable’s length.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr.</span> <span class="i2">And do not tremble so;</span> <span class="i0">For I can weather the roughest gale</span> <span class="i2">That ever wind did blow.’</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">He wrapp’d her warm in his seaman’s coat</span> <span class="i2">Against the stinging blast;</span> <span class="i0">He cut a rope from a broken spar,</span> <span class="i2">And bound her to the mast.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘O father! I hear the church-bells ring,</span> <span class="i2">O say, what may it be?’</span> <span class="i0">‘’Tis a fog-bell, on a rock-bound coast!’—</span> <span class="i2">And he steer’d for the open sea.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘O father! I hear the sound of guns,</span> <span class="i2">O say, what may it be?’</span> <span class="i0">‘Some ship in distress that cannot live</span> <span class="i2">In such an angry sea!’</span> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘O father! I see a gleaming light,</span> <span class="i2">O say, what may it be?’</span> <span class="i0">But the father answered never a word,</span> <span class="i2">A frozen corpse was he.</span></div> </div> <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/i048.jpg" alt="_" width-obs="450" height-obs="486" /></div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,</span> <span class="i2">With his face turned to the skies,</span> <span class="i0">The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow</span> <span class="i2">On his fixed and glassy eyes.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed</span> <span class="i2">That savèd she might be;</span> <span class="i0">And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waves</span> <span class="i2">On the Lake of Galilee.</span> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And fast through the midnight dark and drear,</span> <span class="i2">Through the whistling sleet and snow,</span> <span class="i0">Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept</span> <span class="i2">Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And ever the fitful gusts between</span> <span class="i2">A sound came from the land;</span> <span class="i0">It was the sound of the trampling surf,</span> <span class="i2">On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The breakers were right beneath her bows,</span> <span class="i2">She drifted a dreary wreck,</span> <span class="i0">And a whooping billow swept the crew</span> <span class="i2">Like icicles from her deck.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">She struck where the white and fleecy waves</span> <span class="i2">Look’d soft as carded wool,</span> <span class="i0">But the cruel rocks, they gored her sides</span> <span class="i2">Like the horns of an angry bull.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,</span> <span class="i2">With the masts went by the board;</span> <span class="i0">Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,</span> <span class="i2">Ho! ho! the breakers roared!</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">At day-break, on the bleak sea-beach</span> <span class="i2">A fisherman stood aghast,</span> <span class="i0">To see the form of a maiden fair</span> <span class="i2">Lashed close to a drifting mast.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The salt sea was frozen on her breast,</span> <span class="i2">The salt tears in her eyes;</span> <span class="i0">And he saw her hair like the brown sea-weed</span> <span class="i2">On the billows fall and rise.</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,</span> <span class="i2">In the midnight and the snow!</span> <span class="i0">Christ save us all from a death like this,</span> <span class="i2">On the reef of Norman’s Woe!</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i17"><span class="smcap">H. W. Longfellow.</span></span></div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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