The Inchcape Rock

1617

THE INCHCAPE ROCK

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was 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 Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat;
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

i

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound;

The bubbles rose, and burst around.

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock Will not bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph, the Rover, sailed away,
He scoured the seas for many a day;
And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky
They cannot see the Sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand;
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon."

"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;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,-
"O Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock."

Sir Ralph, the Rover, tore his hair;
He cursed himself in his despair.
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

The Sands of Dee

But, even in his dying fear,

One dreadful sound he seemed to hear,-
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell,

The Devil below was ringing his knell.

1619

Robert Southey [1774-1843]

THE SEA

THROUGH the night, through the night,

In the saddest unrest,

Wrapped in white, all in white,

With her babe on her breast,

Walks the mother so pale,
Staring out on the gale,

Through the night!

Through the night, through the night,
Where the sea lifts the wreck,
Land in sight, close in sight,

On the surf-flooded deck,
Stands the father so brave,
Driving on to his grave

Through the night!

Richard Henry Stoddard [1825-1903]

THE SANDS OF DEE

"O MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee!"

The western wind was wild and dank with foam,

And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:

And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-
A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea:

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee!

Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]

THE THREE FISHERS

THREE fishers went sailing away to the West,

Away to the West as the sun went down;

Each thought on 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,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack 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 weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come home 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 [1819-1875]

The Northern Star

1621

BALLAD

IN the summer even,

While yet the dew was hoar, I went plucking purple pansies,

Till my love should come to shore.. The fishing-lights their dances

Were keeping out at sea,

And come, I sung, my true love!

Come hasten home to me!

But the sea, it fell a-moaning,

And the white gulls rocked thereon;

And the young moon dropped from heaven,

And the lights hid one by one.

All silently their glances

Slipped down the cruel sea,

And wait! cried the night and wind and storm,

Wait, till I come to thee!

Harriet Prescott Spofford [1835

THE NORTHERN STAR

A TYNEMOUTH SHIP

THE Northern Star

Sailed over the bar

Bound to the Baltic Sea;

In the morning gray

She stretched away:

'Twas a weary day to me!

For many an hour

In sleet and shower

By the lighthouse rock I stray;

And watch till dark

For the winged bark

Of him that is far away.

The castle's bound

I wander round,