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!
A DOG OF FLANDERS
[Footnote: This story has been abridged somewhat]
By LOUISE DE LA RAMEE
Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world. They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood.
Nello was a little Ardennois; Patrasche was a big Fleming. They were both of the same age by length of years, yet one was still young and the other already old. They had dwelt together almost all their days; both were orphaned and destitute and owed their lives to the same hand.
Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little Flemish village, a league from Antwerp.