Downward dropping in the dark, Like an arrow to its mark, Or a fish-pole when a shark Bites the hook,
Dropped the pole he could not save, Dropped the walker, and the wave Swift ingulfed the rival brave Of J. Cooke!
Came a roar across the sea Of sea-lions in their glee, In a tongue remarkably Like Chinnook;
And the maddened sea-gull seemed Still to utter, as he screamed, "Perish thus the wretch who deemed Himself Cooke!"
But, on misty moonlit nights, Comes a skeleton in tights, Walks once more the giddy heights He mistook;
And unseen to mortal eyes, Purged of grosser earthly ties, Now at last in spirit guise Outdoes Cooke.
Still the sturdy ocean breeze Sweeps the spray of roaring seas, Where the Cliff-House balconies Overlook;
And the maidens in their prime,
Reading of this mournful rhyme,
Weep where, in the olden time,
Walked J. Cooke.
The Legends of the Rhine.
Beetling walls with ivy grown,
Frowning heights of mossy stone;
Turret, with its flaunting flag
Flung from battlemented crag;
Dungeon-keep and fortalice
Looking down a precipice
O'er the darkly glancing wave
By the Lurline-haunted cave;
Robber haunt and maiden bower,
Home of Love and Crime and Power,—
That's the scenery, in fine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.