Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,

With the masts went by the board;

Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,

Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,

In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,

On the reef of Norman's Woe!

THE LUCK OF EDENHALL.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

[The tradition, upon which this ballad is founded, and the "shards of the Luck of Edenhall," still exist in England. The goblet is in the possession of Sir Christopher Musgrave, Bart., of Eden Hall, Cumberland; and is not so entirely shattered, as the ballad leaves it.]

Or Edenhall, the youthful Lord
Bids sound the festal trumpet's call ;
He rises at the banquet board,

And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all,

"Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!"

The butler hears the words with pain,
The house's oldest seneschal,

Takes slow from its silken cloth again

The drinking glass of crystal tall ;
They call it The Luck of Edenhall.

Then said the Lord; "This glass to praise, Fill with red wine from Portugal!"

The gray-beard with trembling hand obeys; A purple light shines over all,

It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.

Then speaks the Lord, and waves it light, "This glass of flashing crystal tall

Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite ;
She wrote in it; If this glass doth fall
Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall !

669

"'T was right a goblet the Fate should be

Of the joyous race of Edenhall!

Deep draughts drink we right willingly;
And willingly ring, with merry call,
Kling! klang! to the Luck of Edenhall!"

First rings it deep, and full, and mild,

Like to the song of a nightingale ;

Then like the roar of a torrent wild;

Then mutters at last like the thunder's fall,

The glorious Luck of Edenhall.

"For its keeper takes a race of might, The fragile goblet of crystal tall;

It has lasted longer than is right;

Kling! klang!-with a harder blow than all Will I try the Luck of Edenhall!"

As the goblet ringing flies apart,
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;

And through the rift, the wild flames start;
The guests in dust are scattered all,
With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!

In storms the foe, with fire and sword;
He in the night had scaled the wall,
Slain by the sword lies the youthful Lord,

But holds in his hand the crystal tall,

The shattered Luck of Edenhall.

On the morrow the butler gropes alone,
The gray-beard in the desert hall,

He seeks his Lord's burnt skeleton,

He seeks in the dismal ruin's fall

The shards of the Luck of Edenhall.