The+Wreck+of+the+Hesperus

= The Wreck of the Hesperus = It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wint'ry 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 watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor, Had sailed the Spanish Main, "I pray thee put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And tonight 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 North-east; 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 frighted 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, O 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, O say what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light, O 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.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her sides Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank, Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this On the reef of Norman's Woe!

__Analysis of The Wreck of Heperus __ It is difficult to understand why a smart skipper would take his daughter aboard a ship. In the beginning stanzas he talks of the physical features of his daughter, her blue eyes, her cheeks, and her white bosom. He is arrogant about his fear of a hurricane. He then ends up tying his daughter to the mast of the ship so that she can't fall into the water. He wraps her in his coat but then he freezes to death. The crew gets swept off the ship. The ship is then personified. Longfellow describes the ship as a woman. He uses metaphors like "cruel rocks" and similes "like the horns of an angry bull." The ship then comes ashore and a fisherman finds the little girl frozen to death on the mast of the ship.