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 other day?" The sailor's eyes "The other day? the Swan '?" "Ay, ay, sir, here in the cupboard lies "And so your lad is gone?" "Gone with the Swan"? " "And did she stand With her anchor clutching hold of the sand For a month, and never stir?” 66 Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land, Like a lover kissing his lady's hand, The wild sea kissing her, A sight to remember, sir!" "But, my good mother, do you know All this was twenty years ago? 6 I stood on the Gray Swan's' deck, "And did the little lawless lad, That has made you sick and made you sad, "And has he never written line, is mine; And could he write from the grave? Romance and Reality Romance "Gone twenty years, a long, long cruise! And come back home, think you you can You're mad as the sea, you rave! The sailor twitched his shirt so blue, My blessed boy, my child! My dead, my living 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 Had sailed to the Spanish main, " I pray thee put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. "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 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 daughtèr, 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 Romance He cut a rope and Reality 66 66 from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. O father! I hear the church-bells ring; O say, what may it be?" ""T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" And he steered for the open sea. "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 |