Volume 4 / Part 2 — THE WRECK OFF MIZEN-HEAD

I.

O, who could lie a-snoring

Or who carousing be

While such a storm is roaring

And raving o'er the sea?...

A Ship to death is drifting.

Faint hands in prayer uplifting,

With hearts in anguish failing,

The wives and mothers, wailing,

Look out from cliff and lea;

And beacon-fires are glowing,

And, fierce and fiercer growing,

The sleety blasts are blowing

O'er rock and roof and tree.

Come out from giddy dances

And songs and vain romances

And idle dreams and trances,

And man the boat with me.

II.

"Come down while thunders deaden

The minute-guns afar,

And the lightnings as they redden

Make pale the signal's star;

Come down where waves are leaping

And the stricken folk stand weeping,

Our gallant boat uncover,

And through the wet sand shove her,

And speed her o'er the bar;

For though she's but a light one,

For such a sea a slight one,

She's a trim one and a tight one,

And where to-night is he

Whose yearning would not waken

To help the lives forsaken?

Come down with hearts unshaken,

And brave the deep with me!"

III.

So Guy the ever-daring

One fierce September night,

While beacon-fires were flaring

Along the Mizen's height—

As I, from pastimes shrinking,

Of Rose's scorn was thinking—

Cried, all at once upspringing

'Mid dance and mirth and singing

And games and laughters light;

And Hugh the eager-hearted

Out to the portal darted,

And Wolfe and Wilfred started

And Donald, Ralph, and I;

And, prayers and sweet imploring

From maiden lips ignoring,

With spirits wildly soaring

We faced the seas and sky.

IV.

As down the beach descending

We drave the quivering boat,

A gleam of moonlight, rending

The darkness, showed afloat

The labouring Vessel, shattered,

With tackle rent and tattered,

Amid the tempest heaving,

Her course to ruin cleaving;

Then fast the surf we smote,

And, boldly toward her steering,

Still Guy our courage cheering,

The deadly breakers clearing,

We strained across the tide;

And on,'mid lightnings gleaming,—

The winds about us screaming,

The rain in rivers streaming,—

We struggled to her side.

V.

The Vessel still to seaward

Came drifting down the bay,

And, steering into leeward

In surf and rain and spray,

Athwart her sides we floated;

And there on deck we noted,

With faces outward gazing,

Their piteous hands upraising

As all forlorn they lay,

A helpless band together

(Like birds in wintry weather

With feather pressed to feather

Close huddled from the blast);

A moment, weirdly flashing,

We saw them,'mid the lashing

Of billows wildly dashing

O'er bulwark, deck and mast.

VI.

Four times we all but touched her,

Four times adrift were flung,

The fifth I sprang and clutched her,

And leech-like there I clung;

And thus to Guy's enclasping,

With one arm tightly grasping,

Those famished forms I lowered,

Till, well-nigh overpowered,

I trembled where I hung.

Then Guy and Wilfred, straining,

New strength from victory gaining,

Drew down the last remaining,

Till all were safely stowed;

And shoreward with our treasure,

All pain transformed to pleasure,

With oars in mirthful measure

At break of dawn we rowed.

VII.

Ay, well do I remember

The morning stormy-bright

That dawn of wild September,

As through the breakers white

We rowed the brave boat laden

With man and babe and maiden,

While o'er the sandy spaces,

The dawn-beams on their faces,

Looked out with straining sight

The crowd that there had waited,

Each heart with anguish freighted,

As slow the storm abated

Along the Brittas strand;

And how they cheered us, rending

The winds, as slow ascending,

Beneath our burthens bending,

We waded to the land;

VIII.

And when the last was landed,

And homeward faint and cold

We turned, how, eager-handed,

(Guy leading as of old),

High on their shoulders proudly

They set me, cheering loudly,

And bore me on, declaring

The triumph of my daring;—

And how my love I told

That eve amid the gloaming

To Rose as we were roaming

Where Aughrim stream was foaming,

And how she smiled and sighed,

And,'mid the sunset's splendour,

Laying her white hand slender

In mine in love's surrender,

My prayer no more denied.

——G. F. Savage-Armstrong.

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The Sailor Girl

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When the Wild Geese were flying to Flanders

away,

I clung to my Desmond beseeching him stay,

But the stern trumpet sounded the summons to

sea,

And afar the ship bore him, Mabouchal machree.*

And first he sent letters, and then he sent none,

And three times into prison I dreamt he was

thrown;

So I shore my long tresses, and stain'd my face

brown,

And went for a sailor from Limerick Town.

* My heart's own boy.

Oh! the ropes cut my fingers, but steadfast I

strove,

Till I reached the Low Country in search of my

love.

There I heard how at Namur his heart was so

high,

That they carried him captive, refusing to fly.

With that to King William himself I was

brought,

And his mercy for Desmond with tears I be-

sought.

He considered my story, then smiling, says he,

"The young Irish rebel for your sake is free.

"Bring the varlet before us. Now, Desmond

O'Hea,

Myself has decided your sentence to-day.

You must marry your sailor with bell, book, and

ring,

And here is her dowry," cried William the King!

——A. P. Graves.

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