‘You look like the wreck of the Hesperus
How long is it since you slept?’
As through the whistling sleet and snow
Like a sheeted ghost she swept.
‘Where have you been until this hour
In roughest gale and stinging blast?’
Then wrapping her warm in his seaman’s coat
He lay her down to rest.
‘The least you could have done was ring
you knew I’d be worried sick.’
With rattling shrouds all sheathed in ice
She drifted, a dreary wreck.
‘You promised on your mother’s grave.
Why, oh why?’ he cried.
But like the horns of an angry bull
The cruel rocks gored her side.
‘Let me comb the seaweed from your hair
Come hither, daughter mine.’
But her brain was soft as carded wool
And her heart was caked with brine.
‘Sleep tight,’ said he. ‘Sweet dreams,’ said he,
‘For soon the sun will rise.’
But the salt sea was frozen on her breast
The salt tears in her eyes.
Washed up was she, at break of day
(Christ save us all from a death like this)
On the bleak beach of the carpet lay
For she was the wreck of the Hesperus.
For she was the wreck of the Hesperus.