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 the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee put into yonder port,
For I fear the hurricane.

“Last night the moon had a golden ring,

And to-night no moon we see !

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and colder 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.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring,

O say, what it may

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, 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 waves 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 sides
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank
Ho! ho! the breakers roared.

At day break on the bleak sea-beach,
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;

Heaven save us all from a death like this,

On the reef of Norman's Woe!

LONGFELLOW.

LVIII

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

66

By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child;
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

The Bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.