Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!

"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,

O, death was grateful!

"Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,

Skoal to the Northland! skoal!"
Thus the tale ended.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

Ir was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

[blocks in formation]

And the skipper had taken his little «O father! I hear the sound of guns,

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 he watched how the veering flaw did blow

The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,

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,

And to-night 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 Northeast,

O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live

In such an angry sea!"

[blocks in formation]

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 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!

THE LUCK OF EDENHALL.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

OF Edenhall, the youthful Lord
Bids sound the festal trumpet's call ;
He rises at the banquet board,
And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all,
"Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!

The butler hears the words with pain,
The house's oldest seneschal,
Takes slow from its silken cloth again
The drinking-glass of crystal tall;
They call it The Luck of Edenhall.

Then said the Lord: "This glass to praise,

Fill with red wine from Portugal!"

The graybeard with trembling hand obeys;

A purple light shines over all,
It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.

Then speaks the Lord, and waves it light.
"This glass of flashing crystal tall
Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite;
She wrote in it, If this glass doth fall,
Farewell then, 0 Luck of Edenhall !

""T was right a goblet the Fate should be
Of the joyous race of Edenhall!
Deep draughts drink we right willingly ;
And willingly ring, with merry call,
Kling! klang! to the Luck of Eden-
hall!

First rings it deep, and full, and mild,
Like to the song of a nightingale ;
Then like the roar of a torrent wild;
Then mutters at last like the thunder's
fall,

The glorious Luck of Edenhall.

"For its keeper takes a race of might, The fragile goblet of crystal tall; It has lasted longer than is right; Kling! klang! with a harder blow than all

-

Will I try the Luck of Edenhall !"

As the goblet ringing flies apart,
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;
And through the rift, the wild ames
start;

The guests in dust are scattered all,
With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!

In storms the foe, with fire and sword; He in the night had scaled the wall, Slain by the sword lies the youthful Lord,

But holds in his hand the crystal tall, The shattered Luck of Edenhall.

On the morrow the butler gropes alone,
The graybeard in the desert hall,
He seeks his Lord's burnt skeleton,
He seeks in the dismal ruin's fall
The shards of the Luck of Edenhall.

"The stone wall," saith he, "doth fall aside,

Down must the stately columns fall; Glass is this earth's Luck and Pride; In atoms shall fall this earthly ball One day like the Luck of Edenhall !"

[blocks in formation]

PENTECOST, day of rejoicing, had come.

The church of the village

Gleaming stood in the morning's sheen. On the spire of the belfry,
Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the Spring-sun
Glanced like the tongues of fire, beheld by Apostles aforetime.
Clear was the heaven and blue, and May, with her cap crowned with roses,
Stood in her holiday dress in the fields, and the wind and the brooklet
Murmured gladness and peace, God's-peace! with lips rosy-tinted
Whispered the race of the flowers, and merry on balancing branches
Birds were singing their carol, a jubilant hymn to the Highest.
Swept and clean was the churchyard. Adorned like a leaf-woven arbor
Stood its old-fashioned gate; and within upon each cross of iron
Hung was a fragrant garland, new twined by the hands of affection.
Even the dial, that stood on a mound among the departed,

(There full a hundred years had it stood,) was embellished with blossoms
Like to the patriarch hoary, the sage of his kith and the hamlet,
Who on his birthday is crowned by children and children's children,

« AnteriorContinuar »