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It was the schooner Hesperus,
That
sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken
his little daughter,
To
bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-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,
Had
sailed to the Spanish Main,
"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.
Colder and louder 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,
O
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,
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,
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
Towards
the reef of Norman's Woe.
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 bu the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she
stove and sank,
Ho!
ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-shore,
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 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!
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