THE
C O R S A I R ;

A ROMANTIC LEGEND OF HELL GATE,
ILLUSTRATING
THE BEAUTY OF INNOCENCE.
Date of the action: Midsummer, 1627.

Author Unknown, and now First Edited.
With a Historical Sketch of the Strait from the Earliest Times.
NEW YORK:
Wm. B. Allen & Co., Publishers,
164 Fulton St., Opp. St. Paul’s.

PREFACE.

S we have invited the reader to a long Poem, we feel some misgiving in setting before him a lengthy Preface. We will therefore bring to his attention, as an Appendix, the matter intended as an Introduction, thus leaving him free to begin with the Story of the Corsair at once, while the former may afterward be read with advantage, should he feel interested in the facts and history of the locality of which it treats. He will also find therein some particulars relating to the leading characters described in the Story. There he will also learn why the Pirate’s daughter became so impressed with fear as the vessel approached the turbulent Strait, whose name, even now, is suggestive of wreck and disaster.

PRELUDE.

HIS story of the sea,
Full of weird mystery,
’Twere vain to tell to thee
’Mid dusty lore I found it!
You still might doubt its truth,—
The truest tale, in sooth,
(Such as Boaz and Ruth)
Has gathered skeptics round it!

Yet, should you deign to read
Where’er the Muse may lead,
The tale, as you proceed,
Will wake some tender feeling,
Till, like a pleasant dream,
The Corsair’s Maid will seem
To throw a hallowed beam
Where phantom-shades were stealing!

THEC O R S A I R ;

PREFACE.

PRELUDE.

THE
C O R S A I R ;