[THE INCHCAPE ROCK]
Read the poem through as fast as you can, but not so fast as to fail to get the full meaning. When all have finished, your teacher will ask you to write the story the poem tells.
It will be interesting to keep track of the exact time it takes each of you to read the poem and to see whether those who read it more quickly tell the story better than those who read more slowly.
Can you take in every word without speaking, whispering, or moving your lips?
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was as still as she could be,
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock
The waves flow over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The good old Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surges' swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The sun in heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds scream'd as they wheel'd round,
And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walk'd his deck,
And he fix'd his eye on the darker speck.