Classic Poem

The toil, the danger and despair
Struggling with hope in that brief moment there,
May not be chronicled or said;
Or how it seemed from ocean's shadowy bed
That demon shapes leapt up, with murderous hands,
Striving to pluck the desperate swimmer down,
That with his burden he might sink and drown,
And lie supine upon the charnel sands.

But still he laboured; — and a form divine,
Such as an angel clothed in sunshine hath,
Glimmered before him, walking on the brine —
Slow leading shoreward in a golden path.
And well he knew 'twas that sweet pitying sprite
Which he had driven into the howling night!
But now her pale lips seemed to move
Forgivingly with smiles of love, —
Until his heart with hope beat high and warm,
And a new impulse nerved his struggling arm.

Anon his feet were on the slanting sands,
Where slow he toiled with the increasing weight,
Which, like a sea-weed stranded, desolate,
Hung o'er his arm with dripping hair and hands.
And now wild groups came down the sloping lands,
Looming gigantic 'gainst the level sun,
And their long shadows to the beach did run
Precipitate with uncontrolled wo —
Outstripping those who followed! Till anon
Around the melancholy show
The people gathered, and with faces wan
Told their great grief as only mourners can
Who loved the thing they mourn from the hour its life began!
Foremost her sire, a wild disconsolate man,
Mingled with the wet grief of the sea
The tears of his tempest agony,
Which like baptismal waters ran
Over her breathless breast, as from the hand
Of the pale priestess Sorrow flung,
Naming her one of that most enviable band
Whom loving Death has ta'en into his land
While beautiful and young —
Into the land of May, forever green,
To be crowned with virgin flowers immortally a queen

With shreds of white hair sorrowing in the breeze,
The village priest leant o'er her with a prayer;
And then he said, " Let loving arms of care
Take up this mournful victim of the seas,
And bear her to the church, and on a bier
Lay her before the sacred altar-shrine,
Where the mild Saviour, with His eyes divine,
Looks peace to grief, and hope to those who fear;
And as he lifted Jairus' child from death,
He may renew even here the life-reviving breath. "
And as he bade they bore her; while behind
Pale Roland followed with bewildered mind.