Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of the stirring drums, Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear, They shook the depths of the desert's gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer. Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard, and the sea; 1 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free.' The ocean eagle soared 12 16 20 From his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared,→→ This was their welcome home. There were men with hoary hair Why had they come to wither there, 24 28 There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, 32 The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod; They have left unstained what there they Felicia Dorothea Hemans. No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,- Without either sign or sound of their shock, The holy Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that bell on the Inchcape rock; When the rock was hid by the surge's swell, 16 The sun in heaven was shining gay,— 20 The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen, 24 He felt the cheering power of spring,— His eye was on the bell and float: And row me to the Inchcape rock, 28 And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothok." 32 The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, 36 Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound; Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the rock Will not bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok." Sir Ralph, the rover, sailed away,- And now, grown rich with plundered store, So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky On the deck the rover takes his stand; 'Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? For yonder, methinks, should be the shore. Now where we are I cannot tell, 40 44 48 52 But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell." 56 They hear no sound; the swell is strong; Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along, Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,O Christ! it is the Inchcape rock! 69 Sir Ralph, the rover, tore his hair; But ever in his dying fear One dreadful sound he seemed to hear, 1801. 64 68 Robert Southey. THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS IT was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, 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. 8 12 |