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 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 daybreak, 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 seaweed,

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!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

HYMN TO DIANA

QUEEN and Huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:

Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:

Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart

And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:

Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!

Ben Jonson SONG

A LAKE and a fairy boat

To sail in the moonlight clear, And merrily we would float

From the dragons that watch us here !

Thy gown should be snow-white silk,

And strings of orient pearls, Like gossamers dipped in milk,

Should twine with thy raven curls.

Red rubies should deck thy hands,

And diamonds should be thy dower But fairies have broke their wands, And wishing has lost its power!

Thomas Hood.

FULL fathom five thy father lies :

Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes :

Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange ;
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them,
Ding, dong, bell.

Shakespeare

LULLABY

SWEET and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea !
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me ;
While

my

little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon ;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon ;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon :
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

Alfred Tennyson.

ANNAN WATER

ANNAN Water 's wading deep,

And my Love Annie's wondrous bonny; And I am loath she should wet her feet,

Because I love her best of ony.

He's loupen on his bonny gray,

He rode the right gate and the ready;