crown; dead! Yet must thou hear a voice, Restore the When the rock was hid by the surges' swell, The mariners heard the warning bell; Earth shall reclaim her precious things from And then they knew the perilous rock, thee ! Restore the dead, thou sea! FELICIA HEMANS. "OLD IRONSIDES." And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok. The sun in heaven was shining gay, The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled around, [Written with reference to the proposed breaking up of the famous The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen, U. S. frigate "Constitution."J AY, tear her tattered ensign down! And burst the cannon's roar : Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, A darker speck on the ocean green; He felt the cheering power of spring, His eye was on the bell and float: The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, 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, But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell." They hear no sound; the swell is strong; Sir Ralph, the rover, tore his hair; But ever in his dying fear One dreadful sound he seemed to hear, - ROBERT SOUTHEY. THE THREE FISHERS. THREE fishers went sailing out into the west, Out into the west as the sun went down ; Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town; For men must work, and women must weep; Three wives sat up in the light-house tower, And the rack it came rolling up, ragged and brown; But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbor bar be moaning. Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are watching and wringing their hands, For those who will never come back to the town; For men must work, and women must weep, · And the sooner it 's over, the sooner to sleep, And good-by to the bar and its moaning. CHARLES KINGSLEY. |