The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, Colder and louder blew the wind, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm and smote amain She shuddered and paused like a frighted steed, '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, say, what may it be?' "'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!' And he steered for the open sea. 'O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?' 'Some ship in distress that cannot live In such an angry sea!' 'O father! I see a gleaming light, O 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, The lantern gleam'd 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 waves On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, And ever the fitful gusts between 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 sides Her rattling shrouds all sheathed in ice, Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank, At day-break 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, Heaven save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe! H. W. Longfellow XLVI A CANADIAN BOAT SONG AINTLY as tolls the evening chime, keep time. Soon as the woods on the shore look dim, Why should we yet our sail unfurl? Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast, Utawa's tide! this trembling moon Shall see us float over thy surges soon. T. Moore XLVII ROSABELLE LISTEN, listen, ladies gay! No haughty feat of arms I tell ; Soft is the note, and sad the lay, That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. 'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew, 'The blackening wave is edged with white; 'Last night the gifted seer did view A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch; Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?' "T is not because Lord Lindesay's heir "'T is not because the ring they ride, - O'er Roslin all that dreary night A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'T was broader than the watch-fire's light, And redder than the bright moonbeam. It glared on Roslin's castled rock, It ruddied all the copse-wood glen ; 'T was seen from Dryden's groves of oak, And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden. Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud Seem'd all on fire within, around, And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, |