“That’s it!” thumped out Joe, “a story. I likes a good story, specially if there be a goast in it.”
“I don’t know what there is in it,” said Harry, “I’ll leave you to make that out; but I tell you what I did when I heard it, I made a ballad of it, and so if you like I’ll try and recollect it.”
“Bravo!” they said, and Harry gave them the following
SONG OF THE WAVES.
Far away on the pebbly beach
That echoes the sound of the surge;
As if they were gifted with speech,
The breakers will sing you a dirge.
The fishermen list to it oft,
And love the sweet charm of its spell,
For sometimes it wispers so soft,
It seems but the voice of the shell.
It tells of a beautiful child
That used to come down there and play,
And shout to the surges so wild
That burst on the brink of the bay.
She was but a child of the poor,
Whose father had perished at sea;
’Twas strange, that sweet psalm of the shore,
Whatever the story might be!
Yes, strange, but so true in its tone
That no one could listen and doubt;
The heart must be calm and alone
To search its deep mystery out.
She came with a smaller than she
That toddled along at her side;
Now ran to and fled from the sea,
Now paddled its feet in the tide.