Romance and Reality The "Gray Swan" "Oh, tell me, sailor, tell me true, A-sailing with your ship?" The sailor's eyes were dim with dew. He said with trembling lip,- "What little lad? as if there could be What little lad, do you say? Why Elihu, that took to the sea The moment I put him off my knee! The Gray Swan' sailed away." "The other day?" The sailor's eyes "And so your lad is gone?" "Gone with the Swan '? ". 66 And did she stand With her anchor clutching hold of the sand "Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land, Like a lover kissing his lady's hand, A sight to remember, sir!" 66 But, my good mother, do you All this was twenty years ago? know I stood on the Gray Swan's' deck, Taking it off as it might be,—so !— "And did the little lawless lad, That has made you sick and made you sad, Be sure he sailed with the crew! "And has he never written line, To say he was alive?" "Hold! If 'twas wrong, the wrong is mine; Besides, he may lie in the brine; And could he write from the grave? Tut, man! what would you have?” Romance and Reality Romance "Gone twenty years, a long, long cruise! and "Twas wicked thus your love to abuse! Reality But if the lad still live, And come back home, think you you can Forgive him?" You're mad as the sea, you rave! The sailor twitched his shirt so blue, The kerchief. She was wild. My blessed boy, my child! ALICE CARY. The Wreck of the Hesperus It was the schooner Hesperus That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr 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, The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The sinoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old Sailòr "Last night the moon had a golden ring, The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, Colder and colder blew the wind, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain She shuddered and paused like a frighted steed, "Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Romance and Reality Romance He cut a rope from a broken spar, and Reality And bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring; ""T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast! "O father! I hear the sound of guns; "Some ship in distress, that cannot live “O father I see a gleaming light; O say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept Towards the reef of Norman's Woe. |