O stir in the air, no stir in the sea,-
The ship was as 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 Holy 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 surges' swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The sun in heaven was shining gay, -
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled around,
And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen,
A darker speck 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 bell and float:
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat;
And row me to the Inchcape rock,
And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothok."
Though lonely once, strange folk have come,
Till peopled is my barren home.
Enough are here. Oh, heed the cry,
Ye white-winged strangers sailing by!
The bark that lingers on this wave
Will find its smiling but a grave!
Then, tardy mariner, turn and flee,
A myriad wrecks are on thy lee!
With swelling sail and sloping mast,
Accept kind Heaven's propitious blast!
O ship, sail on! O ship, sail fast,
Till, Golgotha's quicksands being past,
Thou gain'st the open sea at last!"
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried: Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning; By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow.
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down
From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, we raised not a stone. But we left him alone with his glory!
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