8

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughtér,

And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow.”

9

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

10

"O father! I hear the church bells ring,

O say, what may it be?"

""T is a fog bell on a rock-bound coast!”— And he steered for the open sea.

11

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

12

"O father! I see the gleaming light,

O say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

13

.Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

14

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee.

15

And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

16

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

17

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew

Like icicles from her deck.

18

She struck where the white and fleecy waves

Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

19

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she strove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

20

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.

21

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,

The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.

22

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!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Spanish main-the name formerly given to the southern portion of the Caribbean sea.

Skipper-the master, or captain, of a vessel.

Flaw a sudden gust of wind.

Bound her to the mast-to keep the storm from throwing her into the sea.

What she took to be the church bells, the sound of guns, and the gleaming light, were danger or distress signals.

With the captain frozen to death at his post of duty, where he had tied himself to keep from going overboard, there was nothing to keep the ship from being driven by the storm against the rocks.

Stanza seven is particularly fine:

Down came the storm and smote amain

The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

So also is stanza eighteen:

She struck where the white and fleecy waves

Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS

This poem is an allegory founded upon a legend. Legends almost innumerable grew up about the great character of Solomon. These legends are preserved in the Koran, the Talmud, and other oriental books. Many of the most interesting of them are about his conversations with birds, insects, and animals. Solomon was supposed to know their languages.

The

legend upon which Whittier based his poem of Solomon and the Ants is doubtless the following, which is found in the Koran:

And Solomon inherited from David the gift of prophecy and knowledge; and he said, "O men, I have been taught the language of birds, and have had bestowed on me of everything wherewith prophets and kings are gifted." And his armies of jinn (demons) and men and birds were gathered together unto Solomon, and they were led on in order, until, when they came unto the valley of ants, which was at Et-Taif in Syria, the queen of the ants, having seen the troops of Solomon, said, “O ants, enter your habitations, lest Solomon and his troops crush you violently, while they perceive not." And Solomon smiled, afterwards laughing at her saying, which he heard from the distance of three miles, the wind conveying it to him; so he withheld his forces when he came in sight of their valley, until the ants had entered their dwellings. And his troops were on horses and on foot in this expedition.

So much for the legend. The meaning of the allegory is this: The ants represent the multitudes of common people-the masses; the king and queen represent the rich and powerful. The ants (the common people) think that the rich and powerful crush them to death without even paying any attention. The queen, representing a certain type of rich and powerful people still to be found in every country, says that these ants (common people) ought to be thankful to be trampled upon by so great a king-it is a great honor to them if they only knew it! But Solomon, representing true greatness, tells her that the wise and strong should seek the welfare of the weak. And his train