SLEEP. The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense; Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse, 57 Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast. Thomson. SLEEP. How many thousand of my poorest subjects Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody; And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them Shakspeare. THE WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS." It was the schooner Hesperus That sail'd the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, The skipper he stood beside the helm ; And he watched how the veering flaw did blow Then up and spake an old sailor, Last night the moon had a golden ring, The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, Colder and louder blew the wind, And the billows froth'd like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain She shudder'd and paused, like a frighted steed, For I can weather the roughest gale He wrapp'd her warm in his seaman's coat, He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring; what may it be?" O say, "'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" And he steer'd 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 answer'd never a word- Lash'd to the helm, all stiff and stark, The lantern gleam'd through the gleaming snow Then the maiden clasp'd her hands, and pray'd And she thought of Christ, who still'd the waves And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept 60 THE WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS." And ever the fitful gusts between The breakers were right beneath her bows; And a whooping billow swept the crew, She struck where the white and fleecy waves But the cruel rocks, they gored her side, Her rattling shrouds, all sheath'd in ice, At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, To see the form of a maiden fair The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, 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! Longfellow. 9 CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS. ONCE on a time, when sunny May Upon a bank of blushing flowers; And smiling,—who could choose but love him? For not more glad than Childhood's brow Was the blue heaven that beamed above him. Old Time, in most appalling wrath, With curling lip, and glancing eye, Spread forth again his baffled pinion, Self-tortured, in his own dominion. Then stepped a gloomy phantom up, Pale, cypress-crowned, Night's awful daughter, And proffered him a fearful cup, Full to the brim of bitter water: Poor Childhood bade her tell her name, And when the beldame muttered "Sorrow," He said,-"Don't interrupt my game; I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow." |