[1852.]

II.

  Stand, thou great bulwark of man’s liberty! 
    Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave,
    Sole refuge to the overwearied brave
  Who planned, arose, and battled to be free,
  Fell, undeterred, then sadly turned to thee,
   Saved the free spirit from their country’s grave,
    To rise again, and animate the slave,
  When God shall ripen all things.  Britons, ye
  Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain
    Hold your proud peril!  Freemen undefiled,
    Keep watch and ward!  Let battlements be piled
  Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till the main
  Sink under them; and if your courage wane,
    Through force or fraud, look westward to your child!

  [1853.]

G.H.  BOKER.

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.

  Then up and spake an old Sailor,
    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 frightened steed,
    Then leaped her cable’s 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 seaman’s 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?”
  “’Tis 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.