Ballads of Bravery

A Young Hero

ON Labrador, like coils of flame
That clasp the walls of blazing town,
The long, resistless billows came,
And swept the craggy headlands down;
Till ploughing in strong agonies
Their furrows deep into the land,
They carried rocks, and bars of sand
Past farthest margin of old seas,
And in their giant fury bore
Full thirty crowded craft ashore.
That night they pushed the darkness through,
O’er rocks where slippery lichens grew,
And swamps of slime and melted snow,
And torrents filled to overflow,
Through pathless wilds, in showers and wind,
Where woe to him who lags behind!
Where children slipped in ooze, and lay
Half frozen, buried half in clay;
Young mothers, with their babes at breast,
In chilly stupor dropped to rest.

A sailor lad of years fourteen
Had chanced, as by the waters thrown,
On four that made sad cry and moan
For parents they had lost between
The wreck and shore, or haply missed.
Cheerly and kind their cheeks he kissed,
And folded each in other’s arm.
Upon a sloping mound of moss
He dragged a heavy sail across,
Close-pinned with bowlders, rough yet warm;
And packing it with mosses tight,
Kept steadfast watch the livelong night,
Nor dared depart, lest e’er again
Was found this treasure he had hid,
Some sudden treacherous gust had slid
Beneath that rugged counterpane.
He knew not name or face of one.
He saved them. It was nobly done.

Day dawned at last. The storm had lulled;
And these were happy, sleeping yet.
A few fresh hands of moss he pulled,
Then traced with trembling steps the track
Of many footprints deeply set;
And pressing forward, early met
These children’s parents hasting back,
And filled their hearts with boundless joy,
As with blanched lips and chattering teeth
He told them of his night’s employ;
Feigned, too, he was not much distressed,
Although his dying heart, beneath
His icy-frozen shirt and vest,

Beat faint. They went; and o’er his eyes
A gathering film beclouded light;
And music murmured in his brain,
Such respite sang from toil and strain
That all his senses, wearied quite,
Were lapped to slumber, lulling pain;
Whilst soothing visions seemed to rise,
That brought him scenes of other times,
With cherub faces, beaming bright,
Of many children, and the rhymes
His mother taught him on her knee,
In happy days of infancy.
Then gentlest forms, with rustling wings,
Were wafting him a world of ease
Beneath those downy canopies,
Wherewith they shut out angry skies;
And they with winning beckonings —
Who looked so sweet and saintly wise —
His buoyant spirit drew afar
From creaking timbers, shivering sails,
And ships that strain in autumn gales,
And snow-mixed rains, and sleeting hails,
And wind and waves at endless war.
Oh! who will e’er forget the day,
The bitter tears, the voiceless prayer,
The thoughts of grief we could not say,
The shallow graves within the bay,
The fifteen dear ones buried there,
The grown, the young, who, side by side,
Without or coffin, shroud, or priest,
Were laid; and him we mourned not least, —
The boy that had so bravely died!

The Beggar Maid

HER arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say;
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stept down
To meet and greet her on her way.
“It is no wonder,” said the lords,
“She is more beautiful than day.”