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The Bay Of Seven Islands

FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the name
Of that half mythic ancestor of mine
Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago,
Down the long valley of the Merrimac,
Midway between me and the river's mouth,
I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest
Among Deer Island's immemorial pines,
Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks
Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song,
Which thou bast told or sung, I call to mind,
Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills,
The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays
Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where
The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade
Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate.

To thee the echoes of the Island Sound
Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan
Of the South Breaker prophesying storm.
And thou hast listened, like myself, to men
Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies
Like a fell spider in its web of fog,
Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks
Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles
And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem
Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove,
Nubble and Boon, the common names of home.
So let me offer thee this lay of mine,
Simple and homely, lacking much thy play
Of color and of fancy. If its theme
And treatment seem to thee befitting youth
Rather than age, let this be my excuse
It has beguiled some heavy hours and called
Some pleasant memories up; and, better still,
Occasion lent me for a kindly word
To one who is my neighbor and my friend.

. . . . . . . . . .

The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth,
Leaving the apple-bloom of the South
For the ice of the Eastern seas,
In his fishing schooner Breeze.

Handsome and brave and young was he,
And the maids of Newbury sighed to see
His lessening white sail fall
Under the sea's blue wall.

Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen
Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine,
St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon,
The little Breeze sailed on,

Backward and forward, along the shore
Of lorn and desolate Labrador,
And found at last her way
To the Seven Islands Bay.

The little hamlet, nestling below
Great hills white with lingering snow,
With its tin-roofed chapel stood
Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood;

Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost
Of summer upon the dreary coast,
With its gardens small and spare,
Sad in the frosty air.

Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay,
A fisherman's cottage looked away
Over isle and bay, and. behind
On mountains dim-defined.

And there twin sisters, fair and young,
Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung
In their native tongue the lays
Of the old Provencal days.

Alike were they, save the faint outline
Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine;
And both, it so befell,
Loved the heretic stranger well.

Both were pleasant to look upon,
But the heart of the skipper clave to one;
Though less by his eye than heart
He knew the twain apart.

Despite of alien race and creed,
Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed;
And the mother's wrath was vain
As the sister's jealous pain.

The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade,
And solemn warning was sternly said
By the black-robed priest, whose word
As law the hamlet heard.

But half by voice and half by signs
The skipper said, 'A warm sun shines
On the green-banked Merrimac;
Wait, watch, till I come back.

'And when you see, from my mast head,
The signal fly of a kerchief red,
My boat on the shore shall wait;
Come, when the night is late.'

Ah! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends,
And all that the home sky overbends,
Did ever young love fail
To turn the trembling scale?

Under the night, on the wet sea sands,
Slowly unclasped their plighted hands
One to the cottage hearth,
And one to his sailor's berth.

What was it the parting lovers heard?
Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird,
But a listener's stealthy tread
On the rock-moss, crisp and dead.

He weighed his anchor, and fished once more
By the black coast-line of Labrador;
And by love and the north wind driven,
Sailed back to the Islands Seven.

In the sunset's glow the sisters twain
Saw the Breeze come sailing in again;
Said Suzette, 'Mother dear,
The heretic's sail is here.'

'Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide;
Your door shall be bolted!' the mother cried:
While Suzette, ill at ease,
Watched the red sign of the Breeze.

At midnight, down to the waiting skiff
She stole in the shadow of the cliff;
And out of the Bay's mouth ran
The schooner with maid and man.

And all night long, on a restless bed,
Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said
And thought of her lover's pain
Waiting for her in vain.

Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear
The sound of her light step drawing near?
And, as the slow hours passed,
Would he doubt her faith at last?

But when she saw through the misty pane,
The morning break on a sea of rain,
Could even her love avail
To follow his vanished sail?

Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind,
Left the rugged Moisic hills behind,
And heard from an unseen shore
The falls of Manitou roar.

On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather
They sat on the reeling deck together,
Lover and counterfeit,
Of hapless Marguerite.

With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair
He smoothed away her jet-black hair.
What was it his fond eyes met?
The scar of the false Suzette!

Fiercely he shouted: 'Bear away
East by north for Seven Isles Bay!'
The maiden wept and prayed,
But the ship her helm obeyed.

Once more the Bay of the Isles they found
They heard the bell of the chapel sound,
And the chant of the dying sung
In the harsh, wild Indian tongue.

A feeling of mystery, change, and awe
Was in all they heard and all they saw
Spell-bound the hamlet lay
In the hush of its lonely bay.

And when they came to the cottage door,
The mother rose up from her weeping sore,
And with angry gestures met
The scared look of Suzette.

'Here is your daughter,' the skipper said;
'Give me the one I love instead.'
But the woman sternly spake;
'Go, see if the dead will wake!'

He looked. Her sweet face still and white
And strange in the noonday taper light,
She lay on her little bed,
With the cross at her feet and head.

In a passion of grief the strong man bent
Down to her face, and, kissing it, went
Back to the waiting Breeze,
Back to the mournful seas.

Never again to the Merrimac
And Newbury's homes that bark came back.
Whether her fate she met
On the shores of Carraquette,

Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say?
But even yet at Seven Isles Bay
Is told the ghostly tale
Of a weird, unspoken sail,

In the pale, sad light of the Northern day
Seen by the blanketed Montagnais,
Or squaw, in her small kyack,
Crossing the spectre's track.

On the deck a maiden wrings her hands;
Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands;
One in her wild despair,
And one in the trance of prayer.

She flits before no earthly blast,
The red sign fluttering from her mast,
Over the solemn seas,
The ghost of the schooner Breeze!

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Dead Ship Of Harpswell

What flecks the outer gray beyond
The sundown's golden trail?
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point,
And sea-worn elders pray,--
The ghost of what was once a ship
Is sailing up the bay.

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms
Against the dusk of land.

She rounds the headland's bristling pines;
She threads the isle-set bay;
No spur of breeze can speed her on,
Nor ebb of tide delay.
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr
Who tell her date and name,
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards
Who hewed her oaken frame.

What weary doom of baffled quest,
Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine?
What makes thee in the haunts of home
A wonder and a sign?
No foot is on thy silent deck,
Upon thy helm no hand;
No ripple hath the soundless wind
That smites thee from the land!

For never comes the ship to port,
Howe'er the breeze may be;
Just when she nears the waiting shore
She drifts again to sea.
No tack of sail, nor turn of helm,
Nor sheer of veering side;
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night,
Against the wind and tide.

In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star
Of evening guides her in;
In vain for her the lamps are lit
Within thy tower, Seguin!
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail,
In vain the pilot call;
No hand shall reef her spectral sail,
Or let her anchor fall.

Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy,
Your gray-head hints of ill;
And, over sick-beds whispering low,
Your prophecies fulfil.
Some home amid yon birchen trees
Shall drape its door with woe;
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails,
The burial boat shall row!

From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point,
From island and from main,
From sheltered cove and tided creek,
Shall glide the funeral train.
The dead-boat with the bearers four,
The mourners at her stern,--
And one shall go the silent way
Who shall no more return!

And men shall sigh, and women weep,
Whose dear ones pale and pine,
And sadly over sunset seas
Await the ghostly sign.
They know not that its sails are filled
By pity's tender breath,
Nor see the Angel at the helm
Who steers the Ship of Death!

. . . . .

'Chill as a down-east breeze should be,'
The Book-man said. 'A ghostly touch
The legend has. I'm glad to see
Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch.'
'Well, here is something of the sort
Which one midsummer day I caught
In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish.'
'We wait,' the Traveller said;
'serve hot or cold your dish.'

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Sisters

ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain,
Woke in the night to the sound of rain,

The rush of wind, the ramp and roar
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore.

Annie rose up in her bed-gown white,
And looked out into the storm and night.

'Hush, and hearken!' she cried in fear,
'Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?'

'I hear the sea, and the plash of rain,
And roar of the northeast hurricane.

'Get thee back to the bed so warm,
No good comes of watching a storm.

'What is it to thee, I fain would know,
That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?

'No lover of thine's afloat to miss
The harbor-lights on a night like this.'

'But I heard a voice cry out my name,
Up from the sea on the wind it came.

'Twice and thrice have I heard it call,
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!'

On her pillow the sister tossed her head.
'Hall of the Heron is safe,' she said.

'In the tautest schooner that ever swam
He rides at anchor in Anisquam.

'And, if in peril from swamping sea
Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?'

But the girl heard only the wind and tide,
And wringing her small white hands she cried,

'O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong;
I hear it again, so loud and long.

''Annie! Annie!' I hear it call,
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!'

Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame,
'Thou liest! He never would call thy name!

'If he did, I would pray the wind and sea
To keep him forever from thee and me!'

Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast;
Like the cry of a dying man it passed.

The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
But through her tears a strange light shone,--

The solemn joy of her heart's release
To own and cherish its love in peace.

'Dearest!' she whispered, under breath,
'Life was a lie, but true is death.

'The love I hid from myself away
Shall crown me now in the light of day.

'My ears shall never to wooer list,
Never by lover my lips be kissed.

'Sacred to thee am I henceforth,
Thou in heaven and I on earth!'

She came and stood by her sister's bed
'Hall of the Heron is dead!' she said.

'The wind and the waves their work have done,
We shall see him no more beneath the sun.

'Little will reek that heart of thine,
It loved him not with a love like mine.

'I, for his sake, were he but here,
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,

'Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet,
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.

'But now my soul with his soul I wed;
Thine the living, and mine the dead!'

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Wreck Of Rivermouth

Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see,
By dawn or sunset shone across,
When the ebb of the sea has left them free,
To dry their fringes of gold-green moss
For there the river comes winding down,
From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown,
And waves on the outer rocks afoam
Shout to its waters, 'Welcome home!'

And fair are the sunny isles in view
East of the grisly Head of the Boar,
And Agamenticus lifts its blue
Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er;
And southerly, when the tide is down,
'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown,
The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel
Over a floor of burnished steel.

Once, in the old Colonial days,
Two hundred years ago and more,
A boat sailed down through the winding ways
Of Hampton River to that low shore,
Full of a goodly company
Sailing out on the summer sea,
Veering to catch the land-breeze light,
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right.

In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid
Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass,
'Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!'
A young man sighed, who saw them pass.
Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand,
Hearing a voice in a far-off song,
Watching a white hand beckoning long.

'Fie on the witch!' cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody Cole
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.
'Oho!' she muttered, 'ye 're brave to-day!
But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
For it 's one to go, but another to come!''

'She's cursed,' said the skipper; 'speak her fair:
I'm scary always to see her shake
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair,
And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.'
But merrily still, with laugh and shout,
From Hampton River the boat sailed out,
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh,
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.

They dropped their lines in the lazy tide,
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod;
They saw not the Shadow that walked beside,
They heard not the feet with silence shod.
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew,
Shot by the lightnings through and through;
And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,
Ran along the sky from west to east.

Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea
Up to the dimmed and wading sun;
But he spake like a brave man cheerily,
'Yet there is time for our homeward run.'
Veering and tacking, they backward wore;
And just as a breath-from the woods ashore
Blew out to whisper of danger past,
The wrath of the storm came down at last!

The skipper hauled at the heavy sail
'God be our help!' he only cried,
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail,
Smote the boat on its starboard side.
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown,
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare,
The strife and torment of sea and air.

Goody Cole looked out from her door
The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone,
Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar
Toss the foam from tusks of stone.
She clasped her hands with a grip of pain,
The tear on her cheek was not of rain
'They are lost,' she muttered, 'boat and crew!
Lord, forgive me! my words were true!'

Suddenly seaward swept the squall;
The low sun smote through cloudy rack;
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all
The trend of the coast lay hard and black.
But far and wide as eye could reach,
No life was seen upon wave or beach;
The boat that went out at morning never
Sailed back again into Hampton River.

O mower, lean on thy bended snath,
Look from the meadows green and low
The wind of the sea is a waft of death,
The waves are singing a song of woe!
By silent river, by moaning sea,
Long and vain shall thy watching be
Never again shall the sweet voice call,
Never the white hand rise and fall!

O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight
Ye saw in the light of breaking day
Dead faces looking up cold and white
From sand and seaweed where they lay.
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,
And cursed the tide as it backward crept
'Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake
Leave your dead for the hearts that break!'

Solemn it was in that old day
In Hampton town and its log-built church,
Where side by side the coffins lay
And the mourners stood in aisle and porch.
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,
The voices faltered that raised the hymn,
And Father Dalton, grave and stern,
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn.

But his ancient colleague did not pray;
Under the weight of his fourscore years
He stood apart with the iron-gray
Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears;
And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame,
Linking her own with his honored name,
Subtle as sin, at his side withstood
The felt reproach of her neighborhood.

Apart with them, like them forbid,
Old Goody Cole looked drearily round,
As, two by two, with their faces hid,
The mourners walked to the burying-ground.
She let the staff from her clasped hands fall
'Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!'
And the voice of the old man answered her
'Amen!' said Father Bachiler.

So, as I sat upon Appledore
In the calm of a closing summer day,
And the broken lines of Hampton shore
In purple mist of cloudland lay,
The Rivermouth Rocks their story told;
And waves aglow with sunset gold,
Rising and breaking in steady chime,
Beat the rhythm and kept the time.

And the sunset paled, and warmed once more
With a softer, tenderer after-glow;
In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore
And sails in the distance drifting slow.
The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar,
The White Isle kindled its great red star;
And life and death in my old-time lay
Mingled in peace like the night and day!

. . . . .

'Well!' said the Man of Books, 'your story
Is really not ill told in verse.
As the Celt said of purgatory,
One might go farther and fare worse.'
The Reader smiled; and once again
With steadier voice took up his strain,
While the fair singer from the neighboring tent
Drew near, and at his side a graceful listener bent.

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Sweet Stay-at-Home

Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
Thou knowest of no strange continent;
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep;
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow
For miles, as far as eyes can go:
Thou hast not seen a summer's night
When maids could sew by a worm's light;
Nor the North Sea in spring send out
Bright hues that like birds flit about
In solid cages of white ice --
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place,
Thou hast not seen black fingers pick
White cotton when the bloom is thick,
Nor heard black throats in harmony;
Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie
Flat on the earth, that once did rise
To hide proud kings from common eyes.
Thou hast not seen plains full of bloom
Where green things had such little room
They pleased the eye like fairer flowers --
Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours.
Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place,
Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face;
For thou hast made more homely stuff
Nurture thy gentle self enough;
I love thee for a heart that's kind --
Not for the knowledge in thy mind.

poem by William Henry Davies
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The Wreck of the Hesperus

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wint'ry 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 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 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 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 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 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!

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Last of the Narwhale

THE STORY OF AN ARCTIC NIP.

AY, ay, I'll tell you, shipmates,
If you care to hear the tale,
How myself and the royal yard alone
Were left of the old Narwhale.
'A stouter ship was never launched
Of all the Clyde-built whalers;
And forty years of a life at sea
Haven't matched her crowd of sailors.
Picked men they were, all young and strong,
And used to the wildest seas,
From Donegal and the Scottish coast,
And the rugged Hebrides.
Such men as women cling to, mates,
Like ivy round their lives:
And the day we sailed, the quays were lined
With weeping mothers and wives.
They cried and prayed, and we gave 'em a cheer,
In the thoughtless way of men;
God help them, shipmates—thirty years
They've waited and prayed since then.
'We sailed to the North, and I mind it well,
The pity we felt, and pride
When we sighted the cliffs of Labrador
From the sea where Hudson died.
We talked of ships that never came back,
And when the great floes passed,
Like ghosts in the night, each moonlit peak
Like a great war frigate's mast,
'Twas said that a ship was frozen up
In the iceberg's awful breast,
The clear ice holding the sailor's face
As he lay in his mortal rest.
And I've thought since then, when the ships came home
That sailed for the Franklin band,
A mistake was made in the reckoning
That looked for the crews on land.
'They're floating still,' I've said to myself,
'And Sir John has found the goal;
The Erebus and the Terror, mates,
Are icebergs up at the Pole!'

'We sailed due North, to Baffin's Bay,
And cruised through weeks of light;
'Twas always day, and we slept by the bell,
And longed for the dear old night,
And the blessed darkness left behind,
Like a curtain round the bed;
But a month dragged on like an afternoon
With the wheeling sun o'erhead.
We found the whales were farther still,
The farther north we sailed;
Along the Greenland glacier coast,
The boldest might have quailed,
Such shapes did keep us company;
No sail in all that sea,
But thick as ships in Mersey's tide
The bergs moved awfully
Within the current's northward stream;
But, ere the long day' s close,
We found the whales and filled the ship
Amid the friendly floes.

'Then came a rest: the day was blown
Like a cloud before the night;
In the South the sun went redly down —
In the North rose another light,
Neither sun nor moon, but a shooting dawn,
That silvered our lonely way;
It seemed we sailed in a belt of gloom,
Upon either side, a day.
The north wind smote the sea to death;
The pack-ice closed us round —
The Narwhale stood in the level fields
As fast as a ship aground.
A weary time it was to wait,
And to wish for spring to come,
With the pleasant breeze and the blessed sun,
To open the way toward home.

'Spring came at last, the ice-fields groaned
Like living things in pain;
They moaned and swayed, then rent amain,
And the Narwhale sailed again.
With joy the dripping sails were loosed
And round the vessel swung;
To cheer the crew, full south she drew,
The shattered floes among.
We had no books in those old days
To carry the friendly faces;
But I think the wives and lasses then
Were held in better places.
The face of sweetheart and wife to-day
Is locked in the sailor's chest:
But aloft on the yard, with the thought of home,
The face in the heart was best.
Well, well—God knows, mates, when and where
To take the things he gave;
We steered for home—but the chart was his,
And the port ahead—the grave!

'We cleared the floes: through an open sea
The Narwhale south'ard sailed,
Till a day came round when the white fog rose,
And the wind astern had failed.
In front of the Greenland glacier line,
And close to its base were we;
Through the misty pall we could see the wall
That beetled above the sea.
A fear like the fog crept over our hearts
As we heard the hollow roar
Of the deep sea thrashing the cliffs of ice
For leagues along the shore.

'The years have come and the years have gone,
But it never wears away—
The sense I have of the sights and sounds
That marked that woeful day.
Flung here and there at the ocean's will,
As it flung the broken floe—
What strength had we 'gainst the tiger sea
That sports with a sailor's woe?
The lifeless berg and the lifeful ship
Were the same to the sullen wave,
As it swept them far from ridge to ridge,
Till at last the Narwhale drave
With a crashing rail on the glacier wall—
As sheer as the vessel's mast—
A crashing rail and a shivered yard;
But the worst, we thought, was past.
The brave lads sprang to the fending work,
And the skipper's voice rang hard:
'Aloft there, one with a ready knife—
Cut loose that royal yard!'
I sprang to the rigging, young I was,
And proud to be first to dare:
The yard swung free, and I turned to gaze
Toward the open sea, o'er the field of haze,
And my heart grew cold, as if frozen through,
At the moving shape that met my view—
O Christ! what a sight was there!

'Above the fog, as I hugged the yard,
I saw that an iceberg lay—
A berg like a mountain, closing fast—
Not a cable's length away!
I could not see through the sheet of mist
That covered all below,
But I heard the cheery voices still,
And I screamed to let them know.
The cry went down, and the skipper hailed,
But before the word could come
It died in his throat—and I knew they saw
The shape of the closing doom!

'No sound but that—but the hail that died
Came up through the mist to me;
Thank God, it covered the ship like a veil,
And I was not forced to see—
But I heard it, mates: O, I heard the rush,
And the timbers rend and rive,
As the yard I clung to swayed and fell:— I lay on the ice, alive!
Alive! O God of mercy! ship and crew and sea were gone!
The hummocked ice and the broken yard,
And a kneeling man—alone!

'A kneeling man on a frozen hill,
The sounds of life in the air—
All death and ice—and a minute before
The sea and the ship were there!
I could not think they were dead and gone,
And I listened for sound or word:
But the deep sea roar on the desolate shore
Was the only sound I heard.
O mates, I had no heart to thank
The Lord for the life He gave;
I spread my arms on the ice and cried
Aloud on my shipmates' grave.
The brave strong lads, with their strength all vain,
I called them name by name;
And it seemed to me from the dying hearts
A message upward came—
Ay, mates, a message, up through the ice
From every sailor's breast:
'Go tell our mothers and wives at home
To pray for us here at rest.'

'Yes, that's what it means; 'tis a little word;
But, mates, the strongest ship
That ever was built is a baby's toy
When it copes with an Arctic Nip.'

poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Song of the Torres Strait Islands

Bold Torres, the sailor, came and went,
with his swarthy, storm-worn band,
he saw Saavedra's Isle to north-
to south a loom of land.
He left unknowing his name would live
through ages with big fate,
as the first to stem with broad-bowed ship
the wash of the Northern Strait.

Round the western coast the Dutch ships crept,
seeking the hidden way;
some left their bones on that bare, west coast,
and the others sailed away.
Turned back, turned back, by reef and shoal,
twin guards of the narrow gate-
the path of the sun from the eastern seas-
they were mocked by the Northern Strait.

Year in, year out, the monsoons swept
o'er the isles of the coral shore,
The savage tossed in his frail canoe,
but the white man came no more.
No sail in sight at the flash of dawn!
No sail at the gloaming late!
Silent and still was the lonley pass-
Unsought was the Northern Strait.

A rattle of arms and a roll of drums,
and the meteor flag flies free,
as an English voice proclaims King George
Lord of the tropic sea.
The parrots scream as the volleys flash;
the gulls their haunts vacate;
and the 'south-east' fills the 'Endeavours' sails
as she heads through the Northern Strait.

And ever since then has our watch been kept
o'er the ships in the narrow way,
where the smoking funnels flare by night,
and the house-flags flaunt by day.
Ever the same strong south-east blows,
and ever we watch and wait,
the wardens we, in Australia's name,
the guard of the Northern Strait.

poem by Ernest Favenc
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The Lover And The Moon

A LOVER whom duty called over the wave,
With himself communed: 'Will my love be true
If left to herself? Had I better not sue
Some friend to watch over her, good and grave?
But my friend might fail in my need,' he said,
'And I return to find love dead.
Since friendships fade like the flow'rs of June,
I will leave her in charge of the stable moon.'
Then he said to the moon: 'O dear old moon,
Who for years and years from thy throne above
Hast nurtured and guarded young lovers and love,
My heart has but come to its waiting June,
And the promise time of the budding vine;
Oh, guard thee well this love of mine.'
And he harked him then while all was still,
And the pale moon answered and said, 'I will.'
And he sailed in his ship o'er many seas,
And he wandered wide o'er strange far strands:
in isles of the south and in Orient lands,
Where pestilence lurks in the breath of the breeze.
But his star was high, so he braved the main,
And sailed him blithely home again;
And with joy he bended his footsteps soon
To learn of his love from the matron moon.
She sat as of yore, in her olden place,
Serene as death, in her silver chair.
A white rose gleamed in her whiter hair,
And the tint of a blush was on her face.
At sight of the youth she sadly bowed
And hid her face 'neath a gracious cloud.
She faltered faint on the night's dim marge,
But 'How,' spoke the youth, 'have you kept your charge?'
The moon was sad at a trust ill-kept;
The blush went out in her blanching cheek,
And her voice was timid and low and weak,
As she made her plea and sighed and wept.
'Oh, another prayed and another plead,
And I couldn't resist,' she answering said;
'But love still grows in the hearts of men:
Go forth, dear youth, and love again.'
But he turned him away from her proffered grace.
'Thou art false, O moon, as the hearts of men,
I will not, will not love again.'
And he turned sheer 'round with a soul-sick face
To the sea, and cried: 'Sea, curse the moon,
Who makes her vows and forgets so soon.'
And the awful sea with anger stirred,
And his breast heaved hard as he lay and heard.
And ever the moon wept down in rain,
And ever her sighs rose high in wind;
But the earth and sea were deaf and blind,
And she wept and sighed her griefs in vain.
And ever at night, when the storm is fierce,
The cries of a wraith through the thunders pierce;
And the waves strain their awful hands on high
To tear the false moon from the sky.

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Swan Song of Parson Avery

When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late,
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop 'Watch and Wait.'

Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-morn,
With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born,
And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea of corn.

Broad meadows reached out 'seaward the tided creeks between,
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green;-
A fairer home, a-goodlier land, his eyes had never seen.

Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead.

All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died,
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied,
And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied.

Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand;
Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand,
And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.

And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore,
'Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before;
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more.'

All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside,
To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide;
And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.

There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair,
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare,
And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer.

From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast,
On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed,
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.

There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind
'All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind;
Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy ransomed find!

'In this night of death I challenge the promise of Thy word!-
Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!-
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!

'In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin,
And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin!
Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter in!'

When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near,
And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear
How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear.

The ear of God was open to His servant's last request;
As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed,
And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest.

There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead;
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read;
And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead.

And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall,
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall,
When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall!

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Child and the Mariner

A dear old couple my grandparents were,
And kind to all dumb things; they saw in Heaven
The lamb that Jesus petted when a child;
Their faith was never draped by Doubt: to them
Death was a rainbow in Eternity,
That promised everlasting brightness soon.
An old seafaring man was he; a rough
Old man, but kind; and hairy, like the nut
Full of sweet milk. All day on shore he watched
The winds for sailors' wives, and told what ships
Enjoyed fair weather, and what ships had storms;
He watched the sky, and he could tell for sure
What afternoons would follow stormy morns,
If quiet nights would end wild afternoons.
He leapt away from scandal with a roar,
And if a whisper still possessed his mind,
He walked about and cursed it for a plague.
He took offence at Heaven when beggars passed,
And sternly called them back to give them help.
In this old captain's house I lived, and things
That house contained were in ships' cabins once:
Sea-shells and charts and pebbles, model ships;
Green weeds, dried fishes stuffed, and coral stalks;
Old wooden trunks with handles of spliced rope,
With copper saucers full of monies strange,
That seemed the savings of dead men, not touched
To keep them warm since their real owners died;
Strings of red beads, methought were dipped in blood,
And swinging lamps, as though the house might move;
An ivory lighthouse built on ivory rocks,
The bones of fishes and three bottled ships.
And many a thing was there which sailors make
In idle hours, when on long voyages,
Of marvellous patience, to no lovely end.
And on those charts I saw the small black dots
That were called islands, and I knew they had
Turtles and palms, and pirates' buried gold.
There came a stranger to my granddad's house,
The old man's nephew, a seafarer too;
A big, strong able man who could have walked
Twm Barlum's hill all clad in iron mail
So strong he could have made one man his club
To knock down others -- Henry was his name,
No other name was uttered by his kin.
And here he was, sooth illclad, but oh,
Thought I, what secrets of the sea are his!
This man knows coral islands in the sea,
And dusky girls heartbroken for white men;
More rich than Spain, when the Phoenicians shipped
Silver for common ballast, and they saw
Horses at silver mangers eating grain;
This man has seen the wind blow up a mermaid's hair
Which, like a golden serpent, reared and stretched
To feel the air away beyond her head.
He begged my pennies, which I gave with joy --
He will most certainly return some time
A self-made king of some new land, and rich.
Alas that he, the hero of my dreams,
Should be his people's scorn; for they had rose
To proud command of ships, whilst he had toiled
Before the mast for years, and well content;
Him they despised, and only Death could bring
A likeness in his face to show like them.
For he drank all his pay, nor went to sea
As long as ale was easy got on shore.
Now, in his last long voyage he had sailed
From Plymouth Sound to where sweet odours fan
The Cingalese at work, and then back home --
But came not near my kin till pay was spent.
He was not old, yet seemed so; for his face
Looked like the drowned man's in the morgue, when it
Has struck the wooden wharves and keels of ships.
And all his flesh was pricked with Indian ink,
His body marked as rare and delicate
As dead men struck by lightning under trees
And pictured with fine twigs and curlèd ferns;
Chains on his neck and anchors on his arms;
Rings on his fingers, bracelets on his wrist;
And on his breast the Jane of Appledore
Was schooner rigged, and in full sail at sea.
He could not whisper with his strong hoarse voice,
No more than could a horse creep quietly;
He laughed to scorn the men that muffled close
For fear of wind, till all their neck was hid,
Like Indian corn wrapped up in long green leaves;
He knew no flowers but seaweeds brown and green,
He knew no birds but those that followed ships.
Full well he knew the water-world; he heard
A grander music there than we on land,
When organ shakes a church; swore he would make
The sea his home, though it was always roused
By such wild storms as never leave Cape Horn;
Happy to hear the tempest grunt and squeal
Like pigs heard dying in a slaughterhouse.
A true-born mariner, and this his hope --
His coffin would be what his cradle was,
A boat to drown in and be sunk at sea;
Salted and iced in Neptune's larder deep.
This man despised small coasters, fishing-smacks;
He scorned those sailors who at night and morn
Can see the coast, when in their little boats
They go a six days' voyage and are back
Home with their wives for every Sabbath day.
Much did he talk of tankards of old beer,
And bottled stuff he drank in other lands,
Which was a liquid fire like Hell to gulp,
But Paradise to sip.

And so he talked;
Nor did those people listen with more awe
To Lazurus -- whom they had seen stone dead --
Than did we urchins to that seaman's voice.
He many a tale of wonder told: of where,
At Argostoli, Cephalonia's sea
Ran over the earth's lip in heavy floods;
And then again of how the strange Chinese
Conversed much as our homely Blackbirds sing.
He told us how he sailed in one old ship
Near that volcano Martinique, whose power
Shook like dry leaves the whole Caribbean seas;
And made the sun set in a sea of fire
Which only half was his; and dust was thick
On deck, and stones were pelted at the mast.
Into my greedy ears such words that sleep
Stood at my pillow half the night perplexed.
He told how isles sprang up and sank again,
Between short voyages, to his amaze;
How they did come and go, and cheated charts;
Told how a crew was cursed when one man killed
A bird that perched upon a moving barque;
And how the sea's sharp needles, firm and strong,
Ripped open the bellies of big, iron ships;
Of mighty icebergs in the Northern seas,
That haunt the far hirizon like white ghosts.
He told of waves that lift a ship so high
That birds could pass from starboard unto port
Under her dripping keel.

Oh, it was sweet
To hear that seaman tell such wondrous tales:
How deep the sea in parts, that drownèd men
Must go a long way to their graves and sink
Day after day, and wander with the tides.
He spake of his own deeds; of how he sailed
One summer's night along the Bosphorus,
And he -- who knew no music like the wash
Of waves against a ship, or wind in shrouds --
Heard then the music on that woody shore
Of nightingales,and feared to leave the deck,
He thought 'twas sailing into Paradise.
To hear these stories all we urchins placed
Our pennies in that seaman's ready hand;
Until one morn he signed on for a long cruise,
And sailed away -- we never saw him more.
Could such a man sink in the sea unknown?
Nay, he had found a land with something rich,
That kept his eyes turned inland for his life.
'A damn bad sailor and a landshark too,
No good in port or out' -- my granddad said.

poem by William Henry Davies
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Madeline. A Domestic Tale

My child, my child, thou leav'st me!–I shall hear
The gentle voice no more that blest mine ear
With its first utterance; I shall miss the sound
Of thy light step amidst the flowers around,
And thy soft-breathing hymn at twilight's close,
And thy 'Good-night' at parting for repose.
Under the vine-leaves I shall sit alone,
And the low breeze will have a mournful tone
Amidst their tendrils, while I think of thee,
My child! and thou, along the moonlight sea,
With a soft sadness haply in thy glance,
Shalt watch thine own, thy pleasant land of France,
Fading to air.–Yet blessings with thee go!
Love guard thee, gentlest! and the exile's wo
From thy young heart be far! And sorrow not
For me, sweet daughter! in my lonely lot,
God shall be with me.–Now, farewell! farewell!
Thou that hast been what words may never tell
Unto thy mother's bosom, since the days
When thou wert pillow'd there, and wont to raise
In sudden laughter thence thy loving eye
That still sought mine:–these moments are gone by,
Thou too must go, my flower!–Yet with thee dwell
The peace of God!–One, one more gaze–farewell!'

This was a mother's parting with her child,
A young meek bride, on whom fair fortune smil'd,
And wooed her with a voice of love away
From childhood's home; yet there, with fond delay,
She linger'd on the threshold, heard the note
Of her cag'd bird thro' trellis'd rose-leaves float,
And fell upon her mother's neck, and wept,
Whilst old remembrances, that long had slept,
Gush'd o'er her soul, and many a vanish'd day,
As in one picture traced, before her lay.

But the farewell was said; and on the deep,
When its breast heav'd in sunset's golden sleep,
With a calm'd heart, young Madeline ere long,
Pour'd forth her own sweet solemn vesper-song,
Breathing of home: thro' stillness heard afar,
And duly rising with the first pale star,
That voice was on the waters; till at last
The sounding ocean-solitudes were pass'd,

And the bright land was reach'd, the youthful world
That glows along the West: the sails were furl'd
In its clear sunshine, and the gentle bride
Look'd on the home that promis'd hearts untried
A bower of bliss to come.–Alas! we trace
The map of our own paths, and long ere years
With their dull steps the brilliant lines efface,
On sweeps the storm, and blots them out with tears.
That home was darken'd soon: the summer breeze
Welcom'd with death the wanderers from the seas,
Death unto one, and anguish–how forlorn!
To her, that widow'd in her marriage-morn,
Sat in her voiceless dwelling, whence with him
Her bosom's first belov'd, her friend and guide,
Joy had gone forth, and left the green earth dim,
As from the sun shut out on every side,
By the close veil of misery!–Oh! but ill,
When with rich hopes o'erfraught, the young high heart
Bears its first blow!–it knows not yet the part
Which life will teach–to suffer and be still,

And with submissive love to count the flowers
Which yet are spared, and thro' the future hour;
To send no busy dream!–She had not learn'd
Of sorrow till that hour, and therefore turn'd
In weariness from life: then came th' unrest,
The heart-sick yearning of the exile's breast,
The haunting sounds of voices far away,
And household steps: until at last she lay
On her lone couch of sickness, lost in dreams
Of the gay vineyards and blue-rushing streams
In her own sunny land, and murmuring oft
Familiar names, in accents wild, yet soft,
To strangers round that bed, who knew not aught
Of the deep spells wherewith each word was fraught.
To strangers?–Oh! could strangers raise the head
Gently as hers was raised?–did strangers shed
The kindly tears which bath'd that feverish brow
And wasted cheek with half-unconscious flow?
Something was there, that thro' the lingering night
Outwatches patiently the taper's light,

Something that faints not thro' the day's distress,
That fears not toil, that knows not weariness;
Love, true, and perfect love!–Whence came that power,
Uprearing thro' the storm the drooping flower?
Whence?–who can ask?–the wild delirium pass'd,
And from her eyes the spirit look'd at last
Into her mother's face, and wakening knew
The brow's calm grace, the hair's dear silvery hue,
The kind sweet smile of old!–and had she come,
Thus in life's evening, from her distant home,
To save her child?–Ev'n so–nor yet in vain:
In that young heart a light sprung up again,
And lovely still, with so much love to give,
Seem'd this fair world, tho' faded; still to live
Was not to pine forsaken. On the breast
That rock'd her childhood, sinking in soft rest,
'Sweet mother! gentlest mother! can it be?'
The lorn one cried, 'and do I look on thee?
Take back thy wanderer from this fatal shore,
Peace shall be ours beneath our vines once more.'

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Beyond Kerguelen

DOWN in the South, by the waste without sail on it—
Far from the zone of the blossom and tree—
Lieth, with winter and whirlwind and wail on it,
Ghost of a land by the ghost of a sea.
Weird is the mist from the summit to base of it;
Sun of its heaven is wizened and grey;
Phantom of light is the light on the face of it—
Never is night on it, never is day!
Here is the shore without flower or bird on it;
Here is no litany sweet of the springs—
Only the haughty, harsh thunder is heard on it,
Only the storm, with a roar in its wings!

Shadow of moon is the moon in the sky of it—
Wan as the face of a wizard, and far!
Never there shines from the firmament high of it
Grace of the planet or glory of star.
All the year round, in the place of white days on it—
All the year round where there never is night—
Lies a great sinister, bitter, blind haze on it:
Growth that is neither of darkness nor light!
Wild is the cry of the sea in the caves by it—
Sea that is smitten by spears of the snow;
Desolate songs are the songs of the waves by it—
Down in the South, where the ships never go.

Storm from the Pole is the singer that sings to it
Hymns of the land at the planet’s grey verge.
Thunder discloses dark, wonderful things to it—
Thunder, and rain, and the dolorous surge.
Hills with no hope of a wing or a leaf on them,
Scarred with the chronicles written by flame,
Stare through the gloom of inscrutable grief on them,
Down on the horns of the gulfs without name.
Cliffs with the records of fierce flying fires on them—
Loom over perilous pits of eclipse;
Alps, with anathema stamped in the spires on them—
Out by the wave with a curse on its lips.

Never is sign of soft, beautiful green on it—
Never the colour, the glory of rose!
Neither the fountain nor river is seen on it,
Naked its crags are, and barren its snows!
Blue as the face of the drowned is the shore of it—
Shore, with the capes of indefinite cave.
Strange is the voice of its wind, and the roar of it
Startles the mountain and hushes the wave.
Out to the South and away to the north of it,
Spectral and sad are the spaces untold!
All the year round a great cry goeth forth of it—
Sob of this leper of lands in the cold.

No man hath stood, all its bleak, bitter years on it—
Fall of a foot on its wastes is unknown:
Only the sound of the hurricane’s spears on it
Breaks with the shout from the uttermost zone.
Blind are its bays with the shadow of bale on them;
Storms of the nadir their rocks have uphurled;
Earthquake hath registered deeply its tale on them—
Tale of distress from the dawn of the world!
There are the gaps, with the surges that seethe in them—
Gaps in whose jaws is a menace that glares!
There the wan reefs, with the merciless teeth in them,
Gleam on a chaos that startles and scares!

Back in the dawn of this beautiful sphere, on it—
Land of the dolorous, desolate face—
Beamed the blue day; and the bountiful year on it
Fostered the leaf and the blossom of grace.
Grand were the lights of its midsummer noon on it—
Mornings of majesty shone on its seas:
Glitter of star and the glory of moon on it
Fell, in the march of the musical breeze.
Valleys and hills, with the whisper of wing in them,
Dells of the daffodil—spaces impearled,
Flowered and flashed with the splendour of Spring in them—
Back in the morn of this wonderful world.

Soft were the words that the thunder then said to it—
Said to this lustre of emerald plain;
Sun brought the yellow, the green, and the red to it—
Sweet were the songs of its silvery rain.
Voices of water and wind in the bays of it
Lingered, and lulled like the psalm of a dream.
Fair were the nights and effulgent the days of it—
Moon was in shadow and shade in the beam.
Summer’s chief throne was the marvellous coast of it,
Home of the Spring was its luminous lea:
Garden of glitter! but only the ghost of it
Moans in the South by the ghost of a sea.

poem by Henry Kendall
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The Palatine

Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk,
Point Judith watches with eye of hawk;
Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk!

Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken,
With never a tree for Spring to waken,
For tryst of lovers or farewells taken,

Circled by waters that never freeze,
Beaten by billow and swept by breeze,
Lieth the island of Manisees,

Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold
The coast lights up on its turret old,
Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould.

Dreary the land when gust and sleet
At its doors and windows howl and beat,
And Winter laughs at its fires of peat!

But in summer time, when pool and pond,
Held in the laps of valleys fond,
Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond;

When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose,
And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose
Flowers the mainland rarely knows;

When boats to their morning fishing go,
And, held to the wind and slanting low,
Whitening and darkening the small sails show,--

Then is that lonely island fair;
And the pale health-seeker findeth there
The wine of life in its pleasant air.

No greener valleys the sun invite,
On smoother beaches no sea-birds light,
No blue waves shatter to foam more white!

There, circling ever their narrow range,
Quaint tradition and legend strange
Live on unchallenged, and know no change.

Old wives spinning their webs of tow,
Or rocking weirdly to and fro
In and out of the peat's dull glow,

And old men mending their nets of twine,
Talk together of dream and sign,
Talk of the lost ship Palatine,--

The ship that, a hundred years before,
Freighted deep with its goodly store,
In the gales of the equinox went ashore.

The eager islanders one by one
Counted the shots of her signal gun,
And heard the crash when she drove right on!

Into the teeth of death she sped
(May God forgive the hands that fed
The false lights over the rocky Head!)

O men and brothers! what sights were there!
White upturned faces, hands stretched in prayer!
Where waves had pity, could ye not spare?

Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey
Tearing the heart of the ship away,
And the dead had never a word to say.

And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine
Over the rocks and the seething brine,
They burned the wreck of the Palatine.

In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped,
'The sea and the rocks are dumb,' they said
'There 'll be no reckoning with the dead.'

But the year went round, and when once more
Along their foam-white curves of shore
They heard the line-storm rave and roar,

Behold! again, with shimmer and shine,
Over the rocks and the seething brine,
The flaming wreck of the Palatine!

So, haply in fitter words than these,
Mending their nets on their patient knees
They tell the legend of Manisees.

Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray;
'It is known to us all,' they quietly say;
'We too have seen it in our day.'

Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken?
Was never a deed but left its token
Written on tables never broken?

Do the elements subtle reflections give?
Do pictures of all the ages live
On Nature's infinite negative,

Which, half in sport, in malice half,
She shows at times, with shudder or laugh,
Phantom and shadow in photograph?

For still, on many a moonless night,
From Kingston Head and from Montauk light
The spectre kindles and burns in sight.

Now low and dim, now clear and higher,
Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire,
Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire.

And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine,
Reef their sails when they see the sign
Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine!

. . . . .

'A fitter tale to scream than sing,'
The Book-man said. 'Well, fancy, then,'
The Reader answered, 'on the wing
The sea-birds shriek it, not for men,
But in the ear of wave and breeze!'
The Traveller mused: 'Your Manisees
Is fairy-land: off Narragansett shore
Who ever saw the isle or heard its name before?

''T is some strange land of Flyaway,
Whose dreamy shore the ship beguiles,
St. Brandan's in its sea-mist gray,
Or sunset loom of Fortunate Isles!'
'No ghost, but solid turf and rock
Is the good island known as Block,'
The Reader said. 'For beauty and for ease
I chose its Indian name, soft-flowing Manisees!

'But let it pass; here is a bit
Of unrhymed story, with a hint
Of the old preaching mood in it,
The sort of sidelong moral squint
Our friend objects to, which has grown,
I fear, a habit of my own.
'Twas written when the Asian plague drew near,
And the land held its breath and paled with sudden fear.'

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Love's Reward

It was a knight of the southern land
Rode forth upon the way
When the birds sang sweet on either hand
About the middle of the May.

But when he came to the lily-close,
Thereby so fair a maiden stood,
That neither the lily nor the rose
Seemed any longer fair nor good.

“All hail, thou rose and lily-bough!
What dost thou weeping here,
For the days of May are sweet enow,
And the nights of May are dear?”

“Well may I weep and make my moan,
Who am bond and captive here;
Well may I weep who lie alone,
Though May be waxen dear.”

“And is there none shall ransom thee;
Mayst thou no borrow find?”
“Nay, what man may my borrow be,
When all my wealth is left behind?

“Perchance some ring is left with thee,
Some belt that did thy body bind?”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My rings and belt are left behind.”

“The shoes that the May-blooms kissed on thee
Might yet be things to some men’s mind.”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My golden shoes are left behind.”

“The milk-white sark that covered thee
A dear-bought token some should find.”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My silken sark is left behind.”

“The kiss of thy mouth and the love of thee
Better than world’s wealth should I find.”
“Nay, thou mayst not my borrow be,
For all my love is left behind.

“A year agone come Midsummer-night
I woke by the Northern sea;
I lay and dreamed of my delight
Till love no more would let me be.

“Seaward I went by night and cloud
To hear the white swans sing;
But though they sang both clear and loud,
I hearkened a sweeter thing.

“O sweet and sweet as none may tell
Was the speech so close ’twixt lip and lip:
But fast, unseen, the black oars fell
That drave to shore the rover’s ship.

“My love lay bloody on the strand
Ere stars were waxen wan:
Naught lacketh graves the Northern land
If to-day it lack a lovelier man.

“I sat and wept beside the mast
When the stars were gone away.
Naught lacketh the Northland joy gone past
If it lack the night and day.”

“Is there no place in any land
Where thou wouldst rather be than here?”
“Yea, a lone grave on a cold sea-strand
My heart for a little holdeth dear.”

“Of all the deeds that women do
Is there none shall bring thee some delight?”
“To lie down and die where lay we two
Upon Midsummer night.”

“I will bring thee there where thou wouldst be,
A borrow shalt thou find.”
“Wherewith shall I reward it thee
For wealth and good-hap left behind?”

“A kiss from lips that love not me,
A good-night somewhat kind;
A narrow house to share with thee
When we leave the world behind.”

They have taken ship and sailed away
Across the Southland main;
They have sailed by hills were green and gay,
A land of goods and gain.

They have sailed by sea-cliffs stark and white
And hillsides fair enow;
They have sailed by lands of little night
Where great the groves did grow.

They have sailed by islands in the sea
That the clouds lay thick about;
And into a main where few ships be
Amidst of dread, and doubt.

With broken mast and battered side
They drave amidst the tempest’s heart;
But why should death to these betide
Whom love did hold so well apart?

The flood it drave them toward the strand,
The ebb it drew them fro;
The swallowing seas that tore the land
Cast them ashore and let them go.

“Is this the land? is this the land,
Where life and I must part a-twain?”
“Yea, this is e’en the sea-washed strand
That made me yoke-fellow of pain.

“The strand is this, the sea is this,
The grey bent and the mountains grey;
But no mound here his grave-mound is;
Where have they borne my love away?”

“What man is this with shield and spear
Comes riding down the bent to us?
A goodly man forsooth he were
But for his visage piteous.”

“Ghost of my love, so kind of yore,
Art thou not somewhat gladder grown
To feel my feet upon this shore?
O love, thou shalt not long be lone.”

“Ghost of my love, each day I come
To see where God first wrought us wrong:
Now kind thou com’st to call me home,
Be sure I shall not tarry long.”

“Come here, my love; come here for rest,
So sore as my body longs for thee!
My heart shall beat against thy breast
As arms of thine shall comfort me.”

“Love, let thy lips depart no more
From those same eyes they once did kiss,
The very bosom wounded sore
When sorrow clave the heart of bliss!”

O was it day, or was it night,
As there they told their love again?
The high-tide of the sun’s delight,
Or whirl of wind and drift of rain?

“Speak sweet, my love, of how it fell,
And how thou cam’st across the sea,
And what kind heart hath served thee well,
And who thy borrow there might be?”

Naught but the wind and sea made moan
As hastily she turned her round;
From light clouds wept the morn alone,
Not the dead corpse upon the ground.

“O look, my love, for here is he
Who once of all the world was kind,
And led my sad heart o’er the sea!
And now must he be left behind.”

She kissed his lips that yet did smile,
She kissed his eyes that were not sad:
“O thou who sorrow didst beguile,
And now wouldst have me wholly glad!

“A little gift is this,” she said,
“Thou once hadst deemed great gift enow;
Yet surely shalt thou rest thine head
Where I one day shall lie alow.

“There shalt thou wake to think of me,
And by thy face my face shall find;
And I shall then thy borrow be
When all the world is left behind.”

poem by William Morris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Kathleen

O Norah, lay your basket down,
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.

There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.

But he was old, and she was young,
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.

She whipped the maids and starved the kern,
And drove away the poor;
'Ah, woe is me!' the old lord said,
'I rue my bargain sore!'

This lord he had a daughter fair,
Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing-fires
Of her the gleeman sung.

'As sweet and good is young Kathleen
As Eve before her fall;'
So sang the harper at the fair,
So harped he in the hall.

'Oh, come to me, my daughter dear!
Come sit upon my knee,
For looking in your face, Kathleen,
Your mother's own I see!'

He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,
He kissed her forehead fair;
'It is my darling Mary's brow,
It is my darling's hair!'

Oh, then spake up the angry dame,
'Get up, get up,' quoth she,
'I'll sell ye over Ireland,
I'll sell ye o'er the sea!'

She clipped her glossy hair away,
That none her rank might know;
She took away her gown of silk,
And gave her one of tow,

And sent her down to Limerick town
And to a seaman sold
This daughter of an Irish lord
For ten good pounds in gold.

The lord he smote upon his breast,
And tore his beard so gray;
But he was old, and she was young,
And so she had her way.

Sure that same night the Banshee howled
To fright the evil dame,
And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
With funeral torches came.

She watched them glancing through the trees,
And glimmering down the hill;
They crept before the dead-vault door,
And there they all stood still!

'Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!'
'Ye murthering witch,' quoth he,
'So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care
If they shine for you or me.'

'Oh, whoso brings my daughter back,
My gold and land shall have!'
Oh, then spake up his handsome page,
'No gold nor land I crave!

'But give to me your daughter dear,
Give sweet Kathleen to me,
Be she on sea or be she on land,
I'll bring her back to thee.'

'My daughter is a lady born,
And you of low degree,
But she shall be your bride the day
You bring her back to me.'

He sailed east, he sailed west,
And far and long sailed he,
Until he came to Boston town,
Across the great salt sea.

'Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen,
The flower of Ireland?
Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,
And by her snow-white hand!'

Out spake an ancient man, 'I know
The maiden whom ye mean;
I bought her of a Limerick man,
And she is called Kathleen.

'No skill hath she in household work,
Her hands are soft and white,
Yet well by loving looks and ways
She doth her cost requite.'

So up they walked through Boston town,
And met a maiden fair,
A little basket on her arm
So snowy-white and bare.

'Come hither, child, and say hast thou
This young man ever seen?'
They wept within each other's arms,
The page and young Kathleen.

'Oh give to me this darling child,
And take my purse of gold.'
'Nay, not by me,' her master said,
'Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.

'We loved her in the place of one
The Lord hath early ta'en;
But, since her heart's in Ireland,
We give her back again!'

Oh, for that same the saints in heaven
For his poor soul shall pray,
And Mary Mother wash with tears
His heresies away.

Sure now they dwell in Ireland;
As you go up Claremore
Ye'll see their castle looking down
The pleasant Galway shore.

And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,
And a happy man is he,
For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darling on his knee.

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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A Sea Dream

We saw the slow tides go and come,
The curving surf-lines lightly drawn,
The gray rocks touched with tender bloom
Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn.

We saw in richer sunsets lost
The sombre pomp of showery noons;
And signalled spectral sails that crossed
The weird, low light of rising moons.

On stormy eves from cliff and head
We saw the white spray tossed and spurned;
While over all, in gold and red,
Its face of fire the lighthouse turned.

The rail-car brought its daily crowds,
Half curious, half indifferent,
Like passing sails or floating clouds,
We saw them as they came and went.

But, one calm morning, as we lay
And watched the mirage-lifted wall
Of coast, across the dreamy bay,
And heard afar the curlew call,

And nearer voices, wild or tame,
Of airy flock and childish throng,
Up from the water's edge there came
Faint snatches of familiar song.

Careless we heard the singer's choice
Of old and common airs; at last
The tender pathos of his voice
In one low chanson held us fast.

A song that mingled joy and pain,
And memories old and sadly sweet;
While, timing to its minor strain,
The waves in lapsing cadence beat.

. . . . .

The waves are glad in breeze and sun;
The rocks are fringed with foam;
I walk once more a haunted shore,
A stranger, yet at home,
A land of dreams I roam.

Is this the wind, the soft sea wind
That stirred thy locks of brown?
Are these the rocks whose mosses knew
The trail of thy light gown,
Where boy and girl sat down?

I see the gray fort's broken wall,
The boats that rock below;
And, out at sea, the passing sails
We saw so long ago
Rose-red in morning's glow.

The freshness of the early time
On every breeze is blown;
As glad the sea, as blue the sky,--
The change is ours alone;
The saddest is my own.

A stranger now, a world-worn man,
Is he who bears my name;
But thou, methinks, whose mortal life
Immortal youth became,
Art evermore the same.

Thou art not here, thou art not there,
Thy place I cannot see;
I only know that where thou art
The blessed angels be,
And heaven is glad for thee.

Forgive me if the evil years
Have left on me their sign;
Wash out, O soul so beautiful,
The many stains of mine
In tears of love divine!

I could not look on thee and live,
If thou wert by my side;
The vision of a shining one,
The white and heavenly bride,
Is well to me denied.

But turn to me thy dear girl-face
Without the angel's crown,
The wedded roses of thy lips,
Thy loose hair rippling down
In waves of golden brown.

Look forth once more through space and time,
And let thy sweet shade fall
In tenderest grace of soul and form
On memory's frescoed wall,
A shadow, and yet all!

Draw near, more near, forever dear!
Where'er I rest or roam,
Or in the city's crowded streets,
Or by the blown sea foam,
The thought of thee is home!

. . . . .

At breakfast hour the singer read
The city news, with comment wise,
Like one who felt the pulse of trade
Beneath his finger fall and rise.

His look, his air, his curt speech, told
The man of action, not of books,
To whom the corners made in gold
And stocks were more than seaside nooks.

Of life beneath the life confessed
His song had hinted unawares;
Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed,
Of human hearts in bulls and bears.

But eyes in vain were turned to watch
That face so hard and shrewd and strong;
And ears in vain grew sharp to catch
The meaning of that morning song.

In vain some sweet-voiced querist sought
To sound him, leaving as she came;
Her baited album only caught
A common, unromantic name.

No word betrayed the mystery fine,
That trembled on the singer's tongue;
He came and went, and left no sign
Behind him save the song he sung.

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Stranger In Louisiana

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We look'd for the youth of the sunny glance,
Whose step was the fleetest in chase or dance!
The light of his eye was a joy to see,
The path of his arrows a storm to flee!
But there came a voice from a distant shore:
He was call'd-he is found 'midst his tribe no more!
He is not in his place when the night-fires burn,
But we look for him still-he will yet return!
-His brother sat with a drooping brow
In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough,
We rous'd him-we bade him no longer pine,
For we heard a step-but the step was thine.

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We look'd for the maid of the mournful song,
Mournful, though sweet-she hath left us long!
We told her the youth of her love was gone,
And she went forth to seek him-she pass'd alone;
We hear not her voice when the woods are still,
From the bower where it sang, like a silvery rill.
The joy of her sire with her smile is fled,
The winter is white on his lonely head,
He hath none by his side when the wilds we track,
He hath none when we rest-yet she comes not back!
We look'd for her eye on the feast to shine,
For her breezy step-but the step was thine!

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We look'd for the chief who hath left the spear
And the bow of his battles forgotten here!
We look'd for the hunter, whose bride's lament
On the wind of the forest at eve is sent:
We look'd for the first-born, whose mother's cry
Sounds wild and shrill through the midnight sky!
-Where are they?-thou 'rt seeking some distant coast-
Oh, ask of them, stranger!-send back the lost!
Tell them we mourn by the dark blue streams,
Tell them our lives but of them are dreams!
Tell, how we sat in the gloom to pine,
And to watch for a step-but the step was thine!

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Fog

The fog slunk down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow,
Southwardly shifting, far inshore, so never a man might know
How the sea it trod with feet soft-shod, watching the distance dim.
Where the fishing-fleet to the eastward beat, white dots on the ocean’s rim.
Feeling the sands with its furtive hands, fingering cape and cove.
Where the sweet salt smells of the nearer swells up the sloping hillside rove;
Where the whimpering sea-gulls swoop and soar, and the great king-herons go,
The fog slunk down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow!

Then a stillness fell on crag and cliff, on beach and breaker fell,
As the sea-breeze brought on its final whiff the note of a distant bell,
One faint, far sound, and the fog unwound its mantle across the lea.
Joined hand in hand with a wind from land, and the twain went out to sea.
And the wind that rose spoke soft, of those who watch on the cliffs at dawn,
And the fog’s white lips, of sinking ships where the tortured tempests spawn,
As, each to each, they told once more such things as fishers know,
When the fog slinks down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow !

Oh, the wan, white hours go limping by, when that pall comes in between
The great, blue bell of the cloudless sky and the ocean’s romping green!
Nor sane young day, nor swirl of spray, as the cat’s-paws lunge and lift;—
On sad, slow waves, like the mounds of graves, the fishermen’s dories drift.
For the fishing-craft that leapt and laughed are swallowed in ghostly gray:
Only God’s eyes may see where lies the lap of the sheltered bay,
So their dories grope, for lost their lore, witlessly to and fro,
When the fog slinks down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow !

Oh, men of the fleet, ’t is ye who learn, of the white fog’s biting breath,
That life may hang on the way ye turn, or the way ye turn be death!
Though they on the lea look out to sea for the woe or the weal of you,
The ominous East, like a hungry beast, is waiting your tidings, too.
A night and a day, mayhap, ye stray; a day and a night, perchance,
The dory is led toward Marblehead, or pointed away for France;
The shore may save, or the sea may score, in the unknown final throw,
When the fog slinks down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow!

Ah, God of the Sea, what joy there lies in that first faint hint of sun!—
When the pallid curtains sulking rise, and the reaches wider run,
When a wind from the west on the sullen breast of the waters shoulders near,
And the blessed blue of the sky looks through, as the fog-wreaths curl and clear.
Ah, God, what joy when the gallant buoy, swung high on a sudden swell,
Puts fear to flight like a dream of night with its calm, courageous bell,
And the dory trips the sea’s wide floor with the verve ’t was wont to know,
And the fog slinks back to Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow!

poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1901)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. The Musician's Tale; The Ballad of Carmilhan - 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 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;
T was the Klaboterman,
Who saw the Bible in his chest,
And made a sign upon his breast,
All evil things to ban.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Rose Delima

You can sew heem up in a canvas sack,
An' t'row heem over boar'
You can wait till de ship she 's comin' back
Den bury heem on de shore
For dead man w'en he 's dead for sure,
Ain't good for not'ing at all
An' he 'll stay on de place you put heem
Till he hear dat bugle call
Dey say will soun' on de las', las' day
W'en ev'ry t'ing 's goin' for pass away,
But down on de Gulf of St. Laurent
W'ere de sea an' de reever meet
An' off on St. Pierre de Miquelon,
De chil'ren on de street
Can tole you story of Pierre Guillaume,
De sailor of St. Yvonne
Dat 's bringin' de Rose Delima home
Affer he 's dead an' gone.
______

He was stretch heem on de bed an' he could
n't raise hees head
So dey place heem near de winder w'ere he
can look below,
An' watch de schooner lie wit' her topmas' on
de sky,
An' oh! how mad it mak' heem, ole Cap-
tinne Baribeau.

For she 's de fines' boat dat never was afloat
From de harbour of St. Simon to de shore of
New-fun-lan'
She can almos' dance a reel, an' de sea shell on
her keel
Wall! you count dem very easy on de finger
of your han'.

But de season 's flyin' fas', an' de fall is nearly
pas'
An' de leetle Rose Delima she 's doin' not-
'ing dere
Only pullin' on her chain, an' wishin' once
again
She was w'ere de black fish tumble, an jomp
upon de air.

But who can tak' her out, for she 's got de
tender mout'
Lak a trotter on de race-course dat's mebbe
run away
If he 's not jus' handle so-an' ole Captinne
Baribeau
Was de only man can sail her, dat 's w'at
dey offen say.

An' now he's lyin' dere, w'ere de breeze is
blow hees hair
An' he's hearin' ev'ry morning de Rose
Delima call,
Sayin', 'Come along wit' me, an' we 'll off
across de sea,
For I'm lonesome waitin' for you, Captinne
Paul.

'On Anticosti shore we hear de breaker roar
An' reef of dead Man's Islan' too we know,
But we never miss de way, no matter night or
day,
De Rose Delima schooner an' Captinne
Baribeau.'

De Captinne cry out den, so de house is shake
again,
'Come here! come here, an' quickly, ma
daughter Virginie,
An' let me hol' your han', for so long as I
can stan'
I'll tak' de Rose Delima, an' sail her off to
sea.'

'No, no, ma fader dear, you 're better stayin'
here
Till de cherry show her blossom on de
spring,
For de loon he 's flyin' sout' an' de fall is
nearly out,
W'en de wil' bird of de nort' is on de wing.

'But fader dear, I know de man can go below
Wit' leetle Rose Delima on St.Pierre de
Miquelon
Hees nam' is Pierre Guillaume, an' he 'll bring
de schooner home
Till she 's t'rowin' out her anchor on de port
of St. Simon.'

'Ha!Ha! ma Virginie, it is n't hard to see
You lak dat smart young sailor man youse'f,
I s'pose he love you too, but I tole you w'at
I do
W'en I have some leetle talk wit' heem
mese'f.

'So call heem up de stair' : an' w'en he 's
stannin' dere,
De Captinne say, 'Young feller, you see
how sick I be?
De poor ole Baribeau has n't very much below
Beside de Rose Delima, an' hees daughter
Virginie.

'An' I know your fader well, he 's fine man
too, Noël,
An' hees nam' was comin' offen on ma
prayer-
An' if your sailor blood she 's only half as good
You can sail de Rose Delima from here to
any w'ere.

'You love ma Virginie? wall! if you promise
me
You bring de leetle schooner safely home
From St. Pierre de Miquelon to de port of St.
Simon
You can marry on my daughter, Pierre Guil-
laume.'

An' Pierre he answer den, 'Ma fader was your
frien'
An' it 's true your daughter Virginie I love,
Dat schooner she 'll come home, or ma nam' 's
not Pierre Guillaume
I swear by all de angel up above.'

So de wil' bird goin' out sout', see her shake de
canvas out,
An' soon de Rose Delima she 's flyin' down
de bay
An' poor young Virginie so long as she can see
Kip watchin' on dat schooner till at las'
she 's gone away.

Ho! ho! for Gaspé cliff w' en de win' is blowin'
stiff,
Ho! ho! for Anticosti w'ere bone of dead
man lie!
De sailor cimetiere! God help de beeg ship dere
if dey come too near de islan' w'en de wave
she 's runnin' high.

It 's locky t' ing he know de way he ought to
go
It 's locky too de star above, he know dem
ev'ry wan
For God he mak' de star, was shinin' up so far,
So he trus no oder compass, young Pierre
of St. Yvonne.

An' de schooner sail away pas' Wolf Islan' an'
Cape Ray-
W'ere de beeg wave fight each oder roun' de
head of ole Pointe Blanc
Only gettin' pleasan' win'. till she tak' de
canvas in
An' drop de anchor over on St. Pierre de
Miquelon.

We're glad to see some more, de girl upon de
shore
An' Jean Barbette was kipin' Hotel de Sans-
souci

He 's also glad we come, 'cos we mak' de rafter
hum;
An' w'en we 're stayin' dere, ma foi! we
spen' de monee free.

But Captinne Pierre Guillaume, might jus' as
well be home,
For he don 't forget his sweetheart an' ole
man Baribeau,
An' so he stay on boar', an' fifty girl or more
Less dey haul heem on de bowline, dey
could n't mak' heem go.

Wall! we 're workin' hard an' fas', an' de
cargo 's on at las'
Two honder cask of w'isky, de fines' on de
worl'!
So good-bye to Miquelon, an' hooraw for St.
Simon-
An' au revoir to Jean Barbette, an' don 't
forget de girl.

You can hear de schooner sing, w'en she open
out her wing
So glad to feel de slappin' of de sea wave on
her breas'
She did n't los' no tam, but travel jus' de
sam',
As de small bird w'en he 's flyin' on de even-
ing to hees nes'.

But her sail 's not blowin' out wit' de warm
breeze out de sout'
An' it 's not too easy tellin' w'ere de snow-
flake meet de foam
Stretchin' out on ev'ry side, all across de Gulf
so wide
W'en de nor'- eas' win' is chasin' de Rose
Delima home.

An' we 're flyin' once again pas' de Isle of
Madeleine
An' away for Anticosti we let de schooner
go
Lak a race-horse on de track, we could never
hol' her back-
She mebbe hear heem callin' her, ole Cap-
tinne Baribeau!

But we 're ketchin' it wan night w'en de star
go out of sight
For de storm dat 's waitin' for us, come be-
fore we know it 's dere-
An' it blow us near de coas' w'ere dey leev'
de sailor's ghos'
On de shore of Dead Man 's Islan' till dey
almos' fill de air.

So de Captinne tak' de wheel, an' it mak' de
schooner feel
Jus' de sam' as ole man Baribeau is workin'
dere hese'f
Well she know it 's life or deat', so she 's
fightin' hard for breat'
For wit' all dem wave a chokin' her, it 's
leetle she got lef'.

Den de beeges' sea of all, stannin' up dere lak
a wall
Come along an' sweep de leetle Rose De-
lima for an' af'
An' above de storm a cry, 'Help, mon Dieu!
before I die.'
An' dere 's no wan on de wheel house, an'
we hear dem spirit laugh.

Dey 're lookin' for dead man, an' dey 're
shoutin' all dey can
Don 't matter all de pile dey got dey want
anoder wan-
An' now dey 're laughin' loud, for out of all
de crowd
Dey got no finer sailor boy dan Pierre of St.
Yvonne!

But look dere on de wheel! a'at 's dat was
seem to steal
From now'ere, out of not'ing, till it reach de
pilot 's place
An' steer de rudder too, lak de Captinne used
to do
So lak' de Captinne 's body, so lak de Cap-
tinne's face.

But well enough we know de poor boy's gone
below,
W'ere hees bone will join de oder on de
place w'ere dead man be-
An' we only see phantome of young captinne
Pierre Guillaume
Dat sail de Rose Delima all night along de
sea.

So we help heem all we can, kip de schooner
off de lan'
W'ere bad spirit work de current dat was
pullin' us inside-
But we fool dem all at las', an' we know de
danger 's pas'
W'en de sun come out an' fin' us floatin'
on de morning tide.

So de Captinne's work is done, an' nex' day de
schooner run
Wit' de sail all hangin' roun' her, to de port
of St. Simon.
Dat 's de way young Pierre Guillaume bring
de Rose Delima home
T'roo de wil' an' stormy wedder from St.
Pierre de Miquelon.

An' de leetle Virginie never look upon de sea
Since de tam de Rose Delima 's comin'
home,
For she 's lef' de worl' an' all! but behin' de
convent wall
She don 't forget her fader an' poor young
Pierre Guillaume.

poem by William Henry Drummond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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