To-day I give you but a song,
An old tradition of the North;
But first, to put you in the mood,
I will a little while prelude,
And from this instrument draw forth
Something by way of overture."

He played; at first the tones were pure
And tender as a summer night,
The full moon climbing to her height,
The sob and ripple of the seas,
The flapping of an idle sail;
And then by sudden and sharp degrees
The multiplied, wild harmonies
Freshened and burst into a gale;
A tempest howling through the dark,
A crash as of some shipwrecked bark,
A loud and melancholy wail.

Such was the prelude to the tale
Told by the Minstrel; and at times
He paused amid its varying rhymes,
And at each pause again broke in
The music of his violin,

With tones of sweetness or of fear,
Movements of trouble or of calm,
Creating their own atmosphere;
As sitting in a church we hear
Between the verses of the psalm
The organ playing soft and clear,
Or thundering on the startled ear.

And then he swore a dreadful oath,

He swore by the Kingdoms Three, That, should he meet the Carmilhan, He would run her down, although he ran Right into Eternity!

All this, while passing to and fro,

The cabin-boy had heard;
He lingered at the door to hear,
And drank in all with greedy ear,
And pondered every word.

He was a simple country lad,
But of a roving mind.

"O, it must be like heaven," thought he,

"Those far-off foreign lands to see,

And fortune seek and find!"

But in the fo'castle, when he heard

The mariners blaspheme,

He thought of home, he thought of God, And his mother under the churchyard sod,

And wished it were a dream.

One friend on board that ship had he;
'T was the Klaboterman,
Who saw the Bible in his chest,
And made a sign upon his breast,
All evil things to ban.

III.

THE cabin windows have grown blank As eyeballs of the dead;

No more the glancing sunbeams burn
On the gilt letters of the stern,
But on the figure-head;

On Valdemar Victorious,

Who looketh with disdain To see his image in the tide Dismembered float from side to side, And reunite again.

"It is the wind," those skippers said, It is the wind; it freshens fast, "That swings the vessel so; 'Tis time to say farewell at last, 'Tis time for us to go."

They shook the captain by the hand,

"Good luck! good luck!" they cried; Each face was like the setting sun, As, broad and red, they one by one Went o'er the vessel's side.

The sun went down, the full moon rose, Serene o'er field and flood;

And all the winding creeks and bays And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze, The sky was red as blood.

The southwest wind blew fresh and fair,
As fair as wind could be;
Bound for Odessa, o'er the bar,
With all sail set, the Valdemar
Went proudly out to sea.

The lovely moon climbs up the sky
As one who walks in dreams;
A tower of marble in her light,
A wall of black, a wall of white,
The stately vessel seems.

Low down upon the sandy coast

The lights begin to burn; And now, uplifted high in air, They kindle with a fiercer glare,

And now drop far astern.

The dawn appears, the land is gone,
The sea is all around;

Then on each hand low hills of sand
Emerge and form another land;
She steereth through the Sound.

Through Kattegat and Skager-rack
She flitteth like a ghost;
By day and night, by night and day,
She bounds, she flies upon her way
Along the English coast.

Cape Finisterre is drawing near,
Cape Finisterre is past;
Into the open ocean stream
She floats, the vision of a dream

Too beautiful to last.

Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet
There is no land in sight;
The liquid planets overhead
Burn brighter now the moon is dead,
And longer stays the night.

IV.

AND now along the horizon's edge
Mountains of cloud uprose,
Black as with forests underneath,
Above their sharp and jagged teeth
Were white as drifted snows.

Unseen behind them sank the sun,
But flushed each snowy peak
A little while with rosy light
That faded slowly from the sight

As blushes from the cheek.

The lightning flashed from cloud to cloud,

And rent the sky in two; A jagged flame, a single jet Of white fire, like a bayonet,

That pierced the eyeballs through.

Then all around was dark again,

And blacker than before; But in that single flash of light He had beheld a fearful sight,

And thought of the oath he swore.

For right ahead lay the Ship of the Dead,
The ghostly Carmilhan!
Her masts were stripped, her yards were
bare,

And on her bowsprit, poised in air,

Sat the Klaboterman.

Her crew of ghosts was all on deck
Or clambering up the shrouds ;
The boatswain's whistle, the captain's
hail,

Were like the piping of the gale,

And thunder in the clouds.

black;

The clouds were everywhere; There was a feeling of suspense In nature, a mysterious sense Of terror in the air.

And all on board the Valdemar
Was still as still could be ;
Save when the dismal ship-bell tolled,
As ever and anon she rolled,

And lurched into the sea.

The captain up and down the deck
Went striding to and fro;
Now watched the compass at the wheel,
Now lifted up his hand to feel

Which way the wind might blow.
And now he looked up at the sails,
And now upon the deep;
In every fibre of his frame
He felt the storm before it came,
He had no thought of sleep.

Eight bells and suddenly abaft,
With a great rush of rain,
Making the ocean white with spume,
In darkness like the day of doom,
On came the hurricane.

There rose up from the sea,
As from a foundered ship of stone,
Three bare and splintered masts alone :
They were the Chimneys Three.

And onward dashed the Valdemar
And leaped into the dark;
A denser mist, a colder blast,
A little shudder, and she had passed
Right through the Phantom Bark.

She cleft in twain the shadowy hulk,
But cleft it unaware;

As when, careering to her nest,
The sea-gull severs with her breast
The unresisting air.

Again the lightning flashed; again
They saw the Carmilhan,
Whole as before in hull and spar;
But now on board of the Valdemar
Stood the Klaboterman.

And they all knew their doom was sealed;
They knew that death was near;
Some prayed who never prayed before,
And some they wept, and some they

swore,

And some were mute with fear.

Then suddenly there came a shock,
And louder than wind or sea

A cry burst from the crew on deck,
As she dashed and crashed, a hopeless
wreck,

Upon the Chimneys Three.

The storm and night were passed, the light

To streak the east began;
The cabin-boy, picked up at sea,
Survived the wreck, and only he,
To tell of the Carmilhan.

INTERLUDE.

WHEN the long murmur of applause
That greeted the Musician's lay
Had slowly buzzed itself away,
And the long talk of Spectre Ships
That followed died upon their lips
And came unto a natural pause,
"These tales you tell are one and all
Of the Old World," the Poet said,
"Flowers gathered from a crumbling
wall,

Dead leaves that rustle as they fall;
Let me present you in their stead
Something of our New England earth,
A tale which, though of no great worth,
Has still this merit, that it yields
A certain freshness of the fields,
A sweetness as of home-made bread."

The Student answered: "Be discreet;
For if the flour be fresh and sound,
And if the bread be light and sweet,
Who careth in what mill 't was ground,
Or of what oven felt the heat,
Unless, as old Cervantes said,
You are looking after better bread
Than any that is made of wheat?
You know that people nowadays
To what is old give little praise;
All must be new in prose and verse:
They want hot bread, or something

worse,

Fresh every morning, and half baked; The wholesome bread of yesterday, Too stale for them, is thrown away, Nor is their thirst with water slaked."

As oft we see the sky in May Threaten to rain, and yet not rain, The Poet's face, before so gay,