My mother would say on occassion I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus. I like poetry from Coleridges Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Japanese Haiku by Matsuo Bashō. Alhough I have never read much Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882 or I may have come across The Wreck of the Hesperus a narrative poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in Ballads and Other Poems in 1842. It is a story that presents the tragic consequences of a sea captains pride. On an ill-fated voyage in winter, he brings his daughter aboard ship for company. The captain ignores the advice of one of his experienced men, who fears that a hurricane is approaching. When the storm arrives, the captain ties his daughter to the mast to prevent her from being swept overboard. She calls out to her dying father as she hears the surf beating on the shore, then prays to Christ to calm the seas. The ship crashes onto the reef of Normans Woe and sinks; the next morning a horrified fisherman finds the daughters body, still tied to the mast and drifting in the surf. The poem ends with a prayer that all be spared such a fate on the reef of Normans Woe. The Wreck of the Hesperus It was the schooner Hesperus, That saild in the wintry sea, And the skipper had taen his little 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 open in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, With his pipe in his mouth, And watchd hov, the veering flaw did blow The smoke now west, now south. Then up and spoke an old sailor, Had sailed the Spanish Main, I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. Last night the moon had a golden ring, But tonight no moon we see. The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughd he. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shudderd and pausd like a frighted steed, Then leapd her cables length. Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so, For I can weather the roughest gale That ever the wind did blow. Dear father! I hear the church bell ring, Oh say what may it be? Tis a fog bell on a rock-bound coast, We must steer for the open sea. Dear father! I see a gleaming light O say what may it be? But the father answerd never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashd to the helm all stiff and stark, With his pale face to the skies; The lantern gleamd thro the falling snow On his fixd and glassy eyes. Then the maiden claspd her hands, and prayd That saved she might be; And she thought of Him who stilld the waves On the lake of Galilee. But fast thro the midnight dark and drear, Thro the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the bark swept on To the reef of Normans Woe. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathd in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank, Ho! Ho! the breakers roard! At daybreak on the bleak sea beach A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair Float by on a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And her streaming hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the waves did fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Oh! save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Normans Woe. SEE en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Hesperus
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:10:03 +0000