Classic Poem

Out of the sea, and over the land,
Over the level Jersey sand,
Making the bay with splendor quiver,
Flashing a glory up the river,
Came the morn on its wheel of fire,
Flinging flame from its glowing tire.

And with the morning, up the tide,
Through golden vapor dim descried,
A distant ship was seen to ride,
Vague as a vessel in a dream, —
More in the sky than on the stream.

Down to the wharf a horseman rode,
As oft on many a morn before,
To note the barks that inland bore;
And when his glance had swept the shore,
His face with sudden pleasure glowed.
He gave the rein to a boy near by,
And raised him in his stirrups high,
And poised the glass at his anxious eye. —
Long time with breathless breast he gazed,
Then deeply sighed, " Now, Heaven be praised! "
And to a skipper sauntering past
He cried, " Unless my vision fail,
I know the set of yonder sail
And the streamer at her mast! "
The skipper then a moment scanned
The ship beneath his shading hand,
And answered, with a sudden smile,
" Ay, ay, sir: I should know that deck:
The same that saved us once from wreck, —
" The Lady of the Isle!" "

In haste the rider grasped the rein,
And turned his restive steed again,
Yet, ere he sped, with hand of joy
A coin of silver flung the boy,
And, as he threw, looked down and smiled;
And then, as if some form had risen
To meet him from its churchyard prison,
He stared upon the wondering child.
He would have spoke; but gayly now,
Before the startled words could join,
The boy was toying with the coin,
Twirling it in the sunny air,
Laughing to see it flashing there.
A moment the rider pressed his brow,
Then dashed the vision in scorn aside,
And glanced again o'er the distant tide,
And, with a face of new delight,
Struck to the rowels the glittering spurs:
The steed obeyed the urging burrs,
And bore proud Berkley out of sight.

The hour went by. Before the town
The ship came up; the sails were doft,
The happy crew, alow and aloft,
Sang as the anchor rattled down, —
Down and down, as the windlass flew,
Linking the Old World with the New.

A crowd was gathering on the wharf,
A crowd leaned on the vessel's side,
And here and there a waving scarf
Bespoke some welcome friend descried.

At the open gang a maiden stood,
Reflected in the happy flood, —
Oh, enviable flood, how blest
With such a vision on thy breast! —
Stood like a timid, startled fawn
Gazing where its mates are gone;
Stood like a white star in the dawn,
Looking with inquiring eyes
Where its westward pathway lies.

Loud rumbling to the shore anon
A stately coach came proudly drawn,
With the ancient Berkley arms thereon;
And soon to land the maid, whose hair
Shed amber beauty in the air,
Was borne, and on her father's breast
The long-expected child was prest.

The gold of fifteen summer suns
Was tangled in young Esther's locks;
Her voice, it was a rill that runs
Half spray among the flowers and rocks;
The hues of the dewiest violet
Within her liquid eyes were set;
Her form was small, her figure light,
As is some fabled fountain-sprite;

The aerial scarf about her twined
Like gossamer, seemed to woo the wind;
A shape so light, she seemed to be
That vision which poets only see, —
The spirit of that iris small
Poised on the mist of a waterfall.

Foremost amid the crowd amazed
The truant urchin stood and gazed.
His sunbrown cheek and large dark eyes,
His long black hair and rustic guise,
Contrasted with the maiden bright,
In her auroral beauty dight,
As if some offspring of the eve
His dusk home in the west should leave,
To gaze, by love and wonder drawn,
On some fair daughter of the dawn.

Again the proud man, in his joy,
Shuddered as he beheld the boy;
But the happy maid looked round and smiled, —
Smiled through her tears at the vision wild
Of flashing eyes and raven hair,
And cheeks long tanned by mountain-air.
That smile went to the urchin's heart,
Secure as ever archer's dart
Sped to the target's central shade,
Long quivering where it struck and stayed.

But soon the carriage, with rumbling loud,
Conveyed the lovely shape from sight;
And he felt like a traveller in the night
When the moon glides into a thunder-cloud
And will no more return to sight.

Out of the vessel came many a box
Of Berkley's treasures manifold;
Some with iron bands and locks,
Some from the cabin, some from the hold.
Some were carried, some were rolled;
But one, with curious shape, to shore
With careful hands the sailors bore:
They said it contained a harp of gold
Of strange device, — they knew no more.

A wain took up the various load;
The truant followed it out of town,
By wild, adventurous wonder drawn
Along the winding highway road,
Where Berkley Hall looked proudly down
Over its river-reaching lawn.
When Berkley saw the boy again,
He took him by the willing hand,
And asked him questions simple, plain,
In easy words to understand;
But still the youth, with laughing eyes,
Made answer with wide, vague replies;
Nor would he tell from whence he came,
But answered, " Ugo " was his name.

And then the master smoothed his hair,
And said, in soothing accents mild,
" It is a barren world, my child,
And full of hearts as bleak and bare
As is a winter heath forlorn,
Where only thrives the tangled thorn;
And when a stray lamb wanders there
Its sides are sorely fleeced and torn.
What can you to secure your bread?
Or how at night procure your bed? "

The boy looked up with wondering face,
Which told such thought had never place
Within the precincts of his brain;
And then he gayly cried again,
With voice on laughter's sudden wing,
" So please you, master, I can sing! "

" A fair profession, by my troth! "
Sir Hugh replied, " when tune and words
Are fitted well, and, suiting both,
The spirit with the voice accords:
But they come off the hungriest birds
Who, so enamored of their strain,
Sing while the others, in the grain,
With voiceless but industrious beaks,
Feed well through all the harvest weeks.
But pour me from your frolic heart
A sample of your vocal art. "

His simple tongue no urging stayed,
And thus the call for song was paid.

SONG

I.

Where the peaks first greet the morn,
Where the mighty streams are born, —
Streams that sweep from east to west
Bearing great arks on their breast, —
Where the eagle rears her young
Barren rocks and pines among,
There's a child which knows no fear,
In the home of the mountaineer

II.

Oft among the forests wild
The lone woodman hears the child
Singing with the earliest dawn,
And his playmate is a fawn:
When that fawn's broad antlers spring,
They shall hear him louder sing;
Then his startling song shall cheer
Far and wide the mountaineer.

III.

Then his hero-hand shall take
In its grasp a crested snake,
And its front, so proudly crowned,
Shall be humbled to the ground, —
Humbled, trampled in the sand, —
And no longer fright the land;
Then the world shall thrill to hear
Songs of that young mountaineer.

The listener, halfway frowning, smiled,
And said, " Perchance you are that child
Far wandering from your mountains wild,
And full of those obnoxious songs
But fit for rebel ears and tongues? "

" Oh, no! " the laughing youth replied:
" Although I come from the mountain-side,
My songs I learned from a schoolman gray,
Who, when the children went to play,
Oft called us round him in a ring,
And, singing, taught us all to sing. "

Then Berkley's brow relaxed his frown,
And he looked still more kindly down;
For there was something in that voice
Which made him sigh and yet rejoice;
And then he cried, " Come in! come in! —
I care not what your kith or kin,
Your face and singing please me well;
And, if you will, here may you dwell,
And be, till your maturer age,
A gentle lady's faithful page. "