FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   656   657   658   659   660   661   662   663   664   665   666   667   668   669   670   671   672   673   674   675   676   677   678   679   680  
681   682   683   684   685   686   687   688   689   690   691   692   693   694   695   696   697   698   699   700   701   702   703   704   705   >>   >|  
e and pine, And sadly over sunset seas Await the ghostly sign. They know not that its sails are filled By pity's tender breath, Nor see the Angel at the helm Who steers the Ship of Death! 1866. . . . . . "Chill as a down-east breeze should be," The Book-man said. "A ghostly touch The legend has. I'm glad to see Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch." "Well, here is something of the sort Which one midsummer day I caught In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish." "We wait," the Traveller said; "serve hot or cold your dish." THE PALATINE. Block Island in Long Island Sound, called by the Indians Manisees, the isle of the little god, was the scene of a tragic incident a hundred years or more ago, when _The Palatine_, an emigrant ship bound for Philadelphia, driven off its course, came upon the coast at this point. A mutiny on board, followed by an inhuman desertion on the part of the crew, had brought the unhappy passengers to the verge of starvation and madness. Tradition says that wreckers on shore, after rescuing all but one of the survivors, set fire to the vessel, which was driven out to sea before a gale which had sprung up. Every twelvemonth, according to the same tradition, the spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the inhabitants of the island. Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk, Point Judith watches with eye of hawk; Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk! Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, With never a tree for Spring to waken, For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, Circled by waters that never freeze, Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, Lieth the island of Manisees, Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold The coast lights up on its turret old, Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. Dreary the land when gust and sleet At its doors and windows howl and beat, And Winter laughs at its fires of peat! But in summer time, when pool and pond, Held in the laps of valleys fond, Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond; When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose, And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose Flowers the mainland rarely knows; When boats to their morning fishing go, And, held to the wind and slanting low, Whitening and darkening the sma
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   656   657   658   659   660   661   662   663   664   665   666   667   668   669   670   671   672   673   674   675   676   677   678   679   680  
681   682   683   684   685   686   687   688   689   690   691   692   693   694   695   696   697   698   699   700   701   702   703   704   705   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

breeze

 

driven

 

Island

 
Leagues
 

island

 

Manisees

 

ghostly

 

farewells

 

Circled

 
waters

forsaken

 
Spring
 
lovers
 

tradition

 
spectacle
 

visible

 

inhabitants

 

twelvemonth

 
sprung
 
beacon

flames

 
Montauk
 

freeze

 

Judith

 
watches
 

Lonely

 

valleys

 
glimpses
 

unclose

 

Flowers


slanting

 

Whitening

 

darkening

 

fishing

 

rarely

 

mainland

 

morning

 

Yellow

 

Dreary

 

turret


lights

 

billow

 
summer
 

laughs

 

windows

 

Winter

 

Beaten

 
Yankee
 

flying

 

legend