Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame.

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear,

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

1

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods

rang

To the anthem of the free.'

The ocean eagle soared

12

16

20

From his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared,→→ This was their welcome home.

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim-band,—

Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

24

28

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

32

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
-They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod;

They have left unstained what there they

Felicia Dorothea Hemans.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,-
The ship was as 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, won he
They did not move the Inchcape bell. I. &

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. }, 4, 12

When the rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

16

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.

20

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.

24

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 bell and float:
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat;

And row me to the Inchcape rock,

28

And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothok." 32

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

36

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 to 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,

40

44

48

52

But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell." 56

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!

69

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.

But ever 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.

1801.

64

68

Robert Southey.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS

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.

8

12