Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

And he steered for the open sea.

“Oh father! I hear the sound of guns,

Oh, say, what may it be?”

“Some ship in distress, that cannot live

In such an angry sea.”

“O father! I see a gleaming light,

Oh, say, what may it be?”

But the father answered never a word—

A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,