I [HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.] T was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper hath taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the lairy-flax, 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 Sailor, 'I pray thee, put into yonder port, Last night the moon had a golden ring, The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the North-east; 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. 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, Towards the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever the fitful gusts between 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, 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 sea-weed, 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! |