And woe to him whose mortal eyes
Klaboterman behold!

It is a certain sign of death !—
The cabin-boy here held his breath,

IIe felt his blood run cold.

II.

The jolly skipper paused awhile,

And then again began :

"There is a Spectre Ship," quoth he,

"A Ship of the Dead, that sails the sea, And is called the Carmilhan.

"A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew,

In tempests she appears;

And before the gale, or against the gale,

She sails without a rag of a sail,

Without a helmsman steers.

She haunts the Atlantic, north and south,

But mostly the mid-sea,

Where three great rocks rise bleak and bare,

Like furnace-chimneys in the air,

And are called the Chimneys Three.

"And ill betide the luckless ship
That meets the Carmilhan ;
Over her decks the seas will leap,
She must go down into the deep,

And perish mouse and man."

The Captain of the Valdemar
Laughed loud with merry heart.

"I should like to see this ship," said he;
"I should like to find these Chimneys Three,
That are marked down in the chart.

"I have sailed right over the spot," he said, "With a good stiff breeze behind,

When the sea was blue, and the sky was clear,— You can follow my course by these pinholes here,— And never a rock could find."

And then he swore a dreadful oath,
He swore by the Kingdoms Three,

That should he meet the Carmilhan
He would run her down, although he ran
Right into Eternity!

All this, while passing to and fro,

The cabin-boy had heard;

He lingered at the door to hear,
And drank in all, with greedy ear,

And pondered every word.

He was a simple country lad,

But of a roving mind.

"Oh, it must be like heaven," thought he,

"Those far-off foreign lands to see,

And fortune seek and find!"

But in the fo'castle, when he heard

The mariners blaspheme,

He thought of home, he thought of God,

And his mother under the churchyard sod, And wished it were a dream.

One friend on board that ship had he

'Twas the Klaboterman,

Who saw the bible in his chest,

And made a sign upon his breast,

All evil things to ban.

III

The cabin windows have grown blank
As eyeballs of the dead;

No more the glancing sunbeams burn

On the gilt letters of the stern,

But on the figure-head ;

On Valdemar Victorious,

Who looketh with disdain

To see his image in the tide

Dismembered float from side to side,

And reunite again.

"It is the tide,” those skippers cried,

"That swings the vessel so ;

It is the tide; it rises fast;

'Tis time to say farewell, at last,

'Tis time for us to go."

They shook the captain by the hand,
"Good luck; good luck!" they cried;
Each face was like the setting sun,

As, broad and red, they one by one
Went o'er the vessel's side.

The sun went down, the full moon rose, The tide was at its flood;

And all the winding creeks and bays

And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze, The sky was red as blood.

The south-west wind blew fresh and fair,

As fair as wind could be ;

Bound for Odessa, o'er the bar,
With all sail set, the Valdemar
Went proudly out to sea.

The lovely moon climbs up the sky
As one who walks in dreams;
A tower of marble in her light,
A wall of black, a wall of white,

The stately vessel seems.

Low down upon the sandy coast

The lights begin to burn; And now uplifted high in air

They kindle with a fiercer glare,

And now drop far astern.

The dawn appears, the land is gone,

The sea is all around;

Then on each hand low hills of sand Emerge and form another land;

She steereth through the Sound.

Through Kattegat and Skager-rack She flitteth like a ghost;

By day and night, by night and day, She bounds, she flies upon her way Along the English coast.

Cape Finistere is drawing near,

Cape Finistere is past;

Into the open ocean stream

She floats, the vision of a dream

Too beautiful to last.

Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet

There is no land in sight;

The liquid planets overhead

Burn brighter now the moon is dead,

And longer stays the night.