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
    Tow’rds 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 side
    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 sea-weed,
    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!

H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

Bedouin Song.

  From the Desert I come to thee
    On a stallion shod with fire,
  And the winds are left behind
    In the speed of my desire. 
  Under thy window I stand,
    And the midnight hears my cry: 
  I love thee, I love but thee,
    With a love that shall not die
        Till the sun grows cold,
        And the stars are old,
        And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

  Look from thy window and see
    My passion and my pain;
  I lie on the sands below,
    And I faint in thy disdain. 
  Let the night-winds touch thy brow
    With the heat of my burning sigh,
  And melt thee to hear the vow
    Of a love that shall not die
        Till the sun grows cold,
        And the stars are old,
        And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

  My steps are nightly driven,
    By the fever in my breast,
  To hear from thy lattice breathed
    The word that shall give me rest. 
  Open the door of thy heart,
    And open thy chamber door,
  And my kisses shall teach thy lips
    The love that shall fade no more
        Till the sun grows cold,
        And the stars are old,
        And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!