Perhaps no modern verses are more popular with all lovers of true poetry than the “Casabianca” of Mrs. Hemans, Longfellow’s “Wreck of the Hesperus,” and Kingsley’s “Three Fishers;” and no wonder, for they touch a chord in every heart, while vividly portraying the perils of a seafaring life. In the story of the “burning deck” we have the record of a true sailor boy, who would not desert his “lone post of death.” And—
“The noblest thing that perished there
Was that young faithful heart!”
In the second-named poem the skipper has taken his little daughter to “bear him company.” A hurricane rises, and it is the poor frightened child who alone hears the “fog-bell on a rock-bound coast.” She runs to her father:—
“But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.”
The ship drifts into the breakers and on the cruel rocks.
“At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair