THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. (190)
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the greatest of American poets. He
was born in Portland, Me., in 1807. For some years he held the
professorship of Modern Languages in Bowdoin College, and later a similar
professorship in Harvard College. He died March 21th, 1882.
1. It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
2. Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her checks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
3. 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.
4. Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear the hurricane.
5. "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.
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