Classic Poem

Like a shell among the rocks,
A tempest-stranded nautilus,
Wrecked but not ruined by the shocks —
Lifted and lodged from danger — thus
The dainty bark was found,
Sitting upright, safe and sound,
Like a vessel on the stocks,
Waiting but to feel
The loosening hammers at her keel
To launch upon the sea
And leap away to liberty,
Like a captured swan set free.
Already there were toiling men
Labouring hard at the spars and ropes;
And on the cliff, with anxious ken,
Gazing with mingled fears and hopes,
Stood Roland, with the lady's form
Languidly leaning on his arm.

There, too, with his beard and hair
Swaying to the summer air,
Stood the monk with mutterings low,
That like the billows' mystical speech,
Hissing, murmuring up the beach,
Were poured in such a Babel flow
None knew if they were prayers or no —
Save the lady, who ever and anon
Responded till the monk was done.

Still labouring at the ropes and spars,
Yo-heaving, like a group of tars,
Toiled the men; but the firm-set keel
Clung to the rock like magnet to steel.
Whereat the monk, as if in wrath,
Hurried down the zigzag path.
In the breeze his white beard shook,
Like the foam of a mountain brook.
He laid his shoulder against the keel,
At once she began to stagger and reel.
" Again! " he cried, " and all together! "
And like a steed that has broken its tether,
Away she sped with a bound and a quiver,
Making the cloven water shiver
With the sudden blow! And then she wheeled,
Restively pawing the watery field,
Angered to feel the clinging check
Of the shoreward cable about her neck.

The sea, to one of its slumberous calms,
Now sunk as it never would waken more:
Its breakers were only as flocks of lambs
Bleating and gambolling along the shore,
Where of late the storm-lion insane
Had shaken abroad his tumultuous mane,
Frightening the land with his rage and his roar.
Round the headland to a little bay
They led the shallop and drew it to land,
Till at the golden beach it lay
With its keel on the smooth wet sand.

How haughtily the gilded prow
Lifted its yawning, dragon head!
And backward — shaping the graceful bow —
The dragon's flying wings were spread;
Where its curious name,
In letters of flame,
Burned in ciphers of golden red:
Lo! there she stood, as fresh and staunch
And bright as at her birthday launch.