Poems Every Child Should Know Part 21

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 gla.s.sy 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 Toward 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 side 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 gla.s.s 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 sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the _Hesperus_, In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe!

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

BANNOCKBURN.

ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY.

You can look down on the battle-field of Bannockburn from Stirling Castle, Scotland, near which stands a magnificent statue of Robert, the Bruce. How often have I trodden over the old battle-field. The monument of William Wallace, too, looms up on the Ochil Hills, not far away.

(1759-96.)

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victorie.

Now's the day, and now's the hour; See the front o' battle lower; See approach proud Edward's power-- Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's King and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?

Let him follow me!

By oppression's woes and pains!

By your sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!

Let us do, or die!

ROBERT BURNS.

PART IV.

Lad and La.s.sie

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE INCHCAPE ROCK.

The man is wrecked and his s.h.i.+p is sunken before he ever steps on board or sees the water if his heart is hard and his estimate of human beings low. "The Inchcape Rock" is a thrust at hard-heartedness. "What is the use of life?" To bear one another's burdens, to develop a genius for pulling people through hard places--that's the use of life. It is the last resort of a mean mind to crack jokes that wreck innocent voyagers on life's sea. (1774-1843.)

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, The s.h.i.+p was still as she could be; Her sails from heaven received no motion; Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock, The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock; So little they rose, so little they fell, They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell, The mariners heard the warning Bell; And then they knew the perilous Rock, And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was s.h.i.+ning gay; All things were joyful on that day; The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round, And there was joyance in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen, A dark spot on the ocean green; Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck, And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.

He felt the cheering power of spring; It made him whistle, it made him sing: His heart was mirthful to excess, But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float.

Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat And row me to the Inchcape Rock, And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, And to the Inchcape Rock they go; Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound; The bubbles rose and burst around.

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away; He scoured the sea for many a day; And now grown rich with plundered store, He steers his course for Scotland's sh.o.r.e.

So thick a haze o'erspread the sky, They cannot see the sun on high: The wind hath blown a gale all day, At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand; So dark it is they see no land.

Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be brighter soon, For there is the dawn of the rising moon."

"Canst hear," said one, "the broken roar?

For methinks we should be near the sh.o.r.e."