The Children's Own Longfellow

The Children's Own Longfellow

Longfellow has been fitly called the childrens poet. Many of his poems have from their very first appearance been favorites with youthful readers, and for many thousands of children he is the poet best beloved. It has been, therefore, the hope of the publishers that this volume, containing eight of the most popular of these poems, illustrated in color by some of the best known American artists of the present day, will find a ready welcome at the hands of young folks and their parents. It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken 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 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 Sailr, 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, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cables length. Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow. He wrapped her warm in his seamans coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. O father! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh say, what may it be? T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast! And he steered for the open sea. O father! I hear the sound of guns, Oh say, what may it be? Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea! O father! I see a gleaming light, Oh say, what may it be? But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towrds the reef of Normans Woe. 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 sea-weed, 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 Normans Woe! ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 9080
Author: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Release Date: Oct 1, 2005
Format: eBook
Language: English