HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

75

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah

lone Hannah
Sitting at the window binding shoes, –
Faded, wrinkled, -
Sitting, stitching in a mournful muse.

Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree.

Spring and winter
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

Not a neighbor
Passing nod or answer will refuse

To her whisper :
“Is there from the fishers any news ?

Oh, her heart's adrift with one
On an endless voyage gone !

Night and morning
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah
Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes ;

Hale and clever,
For a willing heart and hand he sues.

May-day skies are all aglow,
And the waves are laughing so !

For her wedding
Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing,
'Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon cooes.

Hannah shudders,
For the wild sou’wester mischief brews.

Round the rocks of Marblehead,
Outward bound, a schooner sped.

Silent, lonesome,
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

'Tis November,
Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews.

From Newfoundland
Not a sail returning will she lose ;

Whispering hoarsely, “ Fishermen,
Have you, have you heard of Ben ?”

Old with watching,
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

Twenty winters
Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views.

Twenty seasons :
Never one has brought her any news.

Still her dim eyes silently
Chase the white sails o'er the sea.

Hopeless, faithful,
Hannah's at the window binding shoes.

LUCY LARCOM.

A GREYPORT LEGEND.

77

A GREYPORT LEGEND.

1797

TH 'HEY ran through the streets of the seaport town,

They peered from the decks of the ships that lay ; The cold sea-fog that came whitening down

Was never so cold or white as they. “Ho! Starbuck, Pinckney, and Tenterden! Run for your shallops, gather your men,

Scatter your boats on the lower bay.” Good cause for fear ! In the thick mid-day,

The hulk that lay by the rotting pier, Filled with the children in happy play,

Parted its moorings and drifted clear, –
Dristed clear beyond reach or call, -
Thirteen children they were in all,

All adrift in the lower bay !
Said a hard-faced skipper, “ God help us all !

She will not float till the turning tide !”
Said his wife, “My darling will hear my call,

Whether in sea or heaven she bide." And she lifted a quavering voice and high, Wild and strange as the sea-bird's cry,

Till they shuddered and wondered at her side. The fog drove down on each laboring crew,

Veiled each from each, and the sky and shore. There was not a sound but the breath they drew,

And the lap of water and creak of oar ;

And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown O’er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,

But not from the lips that had gone before. They came no more. But they tell the tale

That, when fogs are thick on the harbor-reef,
The mackerel fishers shorten sail,

For the signal they know will bring relief,
For the voices of children still at play
In a phantom hulk that drifts away

Through channels whose waters never fail.

It is but a foolish shipman's tale,

A theme for a poet's idle page ;
But still when the mists of doubt prevail,

And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before,

Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

BRET HARTE

THE JUMBLIES.

From “Nonsense Songs.”

I.

THEY
HEY went to sea in a sieve, they did ;

In a sieve they went to sea :
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,

In a sieve they went to sea.

THE JUMBLIES.

79

And when the sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, “You'll all be drowned !'
They called aloud, “ Our sieve ain't big :
But we don't care a button ; we don't care a fig ;

In a sieve we'll go to sea !”
Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live:
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue;

And they went to sea in a sieve.

II.

They sailed away in a sieve, they did;

In a sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil,
Tied with a ribbon, by way of a sail,

To a small tobacco-pipe mast.
And every one said, who saw them go :
“Oh! won't they be soon upset, you know:
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long ;
And, happen what may, it's extremely wrong

In a sieve to sail so fast."
Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live :
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue ;

And they went to sea in a sieve.

III.

The water it soon came in, it did ;

The water it soon came in :
So, to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper, all folded neat ;

And they fastened it down with a pin.