MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR. And the hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain, And patter their doleful prayers;— But their prayers are all in vain, All in vain! There he stands in the foul weather, The foolish, fond Old Year, To the crimson woods he saith, To the voice gentle and low And now the sweet day is dead! No mist or stain! Then, too, the Old Year dieto, And the forests utter a moan, Then comes, with an awful roar, The storm-wind! Howl! howl! and from the forest Sweep the red leaves away! Crowned with wild flowers and with Would the sins that thou abhorest, And whispered to my restless heart Of the pine forest, dark and hoar ! repose ! Go, breathe it in the ear Of all who doubt and fear, And say to them, "Be of good cheer!" Ye sounds, so low and calm, Tongues of the dead, not lost, Of the vast plain where Death encamps ! Ballads. THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. PREFATORY NOTE. THE following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the seashore at Newport A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, for 1838-9, says, "There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or AnteGothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the twelfth century; that style which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics, called the round-arch style, the same which in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture. "On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern architecture will concur, THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. This remark applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the alterations that it subsequently received; for there are several such alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern times to various uses, for example, as the substructure of a windmill, and latterly as a hay magazine. To the same times may be referred the windows, the fireplace, and the apertures made above the columns. That this building could not have been erected for a windmill is what an architect will easily discern." I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well established for the purpose of a ballad, though doubtless many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho, “God bless me! did I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was nothing but a windmill? and nobody could mistake it but one who had the like in his head." "SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! Comest to daunt me ! Why dost thou haunt me?" Then, from those cavernous eyes From the heart's chamber "I was a Viking old! "Far in the Northern Land, Tamed the ger-falcon ; "Oft to his frozen lair Oft through the forest dark Sang from the meadow. But when I older grew, With the marauders. By our stern orders. "Many a wassail-bout Set the cocks crowing, Filled to o'erflowing. "Once, as I told in glee Tales of the stormy sea, Fell their soft splendour. Our vows were plighted. Under its loosened vest "Bright in her father's hall "While the brown ale he quaffed, The sea-foam brightly, "She was a Prince's child, And though she blushed and smiled, Should not the dove so white "Scarce had I put to sea, Among the Norsemen !- With twenty horsemen. Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast, When the wind failed us; And with a sudden flaw "And as to catch the gale "As with his wings aslant, Sails the fierce cormorant, Seeking some rocky haunt, With his prey laden: "Three weeks we westward bore, Stands looking seaward. "There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes, "Still grew my bosom then, The sunlight hateful! Oh, death was grateful! My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr, Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, The skipper he stood beside the helm, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old Sailor, "I pray thee, put into yonder port, "Last night the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. In Scandinavia this is the customary salutation when drinking a health. I have lightly changed the orthography of the word, in order to preserve the correct pronuntation. Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the North-east; The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, "Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, For I can weather the roughest gale He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat, He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring, O say what may it be?" ""Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"And he steered for the open sea. "O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!" 66 "O father, I see a gleaming light, O say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, And fast through the midnight dark and drear, And ever the fitful gusts between It was the sound of the trampling surf, D |