The Wreck Off Mizen-Head

O, who could lie a-snoring
Or who carousing be
While such a storm is roaring
And raving o'er the sea?...
A Ship to death is drifting.
Faint hands in prayer uplifting,
With hearts in anguish failing,
The wives and mothers, wailing,
Look out from cliff and lea;
And beacon-fires are glowing,
And, fierce and fiercer growing,
The sleety blasts are blowing
O'er rock and roof and tree.
Come out from giddy dances
And songs and vain romances
And idle dreams and trances,
And man the boat with me.

"Come down while thunders deaden
The minute-guns afar,
And the lightnings as they redden
Make pale the signal's star;
Come down where waves are leaping
And the stricken folk stand weeping,
Our gallant boat uncover,
And through the wet sand shove her,
And speed her o'er the bar;
For though she's but a light one,
For such a sea a slight one,
She's a trim one and a tight one,
And where to-night is he
Whose yearning would not waken
To help the lives forsaken?
Come down with hearts unshaken,
And brave the deep with me!"

So Guy the ever-daring
One fierce September night,
While beacon-fires were flaring
Along the Mizen's height--
As I, from pastimes shrinking,
Of Rose's scorn was thinking--
Cried, all at once upspringing
'Mid dance and mirth and singing
And games and laughters light;
And Hugh the eager-hearted
Out to the portal darted,
And Wolfe and Wilfred started
And Donald, Ralph, and I;
And, prayers and sweet imploring
From maiden lips ignoring,
With spirits wildly soaring
We faced the seas and sky.

As down the beach descending
We drave the quivering boat,
A gleam of moonlight, rending
The darkness, showed afloat
The labouring Vessel, shattered,
With tackle rent and tattered,
Amid the tempest heaving,
Her course to ruin cleaving;
Then fast the surf we smote,
And, boldly toward her steering,
Still Guy our courage cheering,
The deadly breakers clearing,
We strained across the tide;
And on,'mid lightnings gleaming,--
The winds about us screaming,
The rain in rivers streaming,--
We struggled to her side.

The Vessel still to seaward
Came drifting down the bay,
And, steering into leeward
In surf and rain and spray,
Athwart her sides we floated;
And there on deck we noted,
With faces outward gazing,
Their piteous hands upraising
As all forlorn they lay,
A helpless band together
(Like birds in wintry weather
With feather pressed to feather
Close huddled from the blast);
A moment, weirdly flashing,
We saw them,'mid the lashing
Of billows wildly dashing
O'er bulwark, deck and mast.

Four times we all but touched her,
Four times adrift were flung,
The fifth I sprang and clutched her,
And leech-like there I clung;
And thus to Guy's enclasping,
With one arm tightly grasping,
Those famished forms I lowered,
Till, well-nigh overpowered,
I trembled where I hung.
Then Guy and Wilfred, straining,
New strength from victory gaining,
Drew down the last remaining,
Till all were safely stowed;
And shoreward with our treasure,
All pain transformed to pleasure,
With oars in mirthful measure
At break of dawn we rowed.

Ay, well do I remember
The morning stormy-bright
That dawn of wild September,
As through the breakers white
We rowed the brave boat laden
With man and babe and maiden,
While o'er the sandy spaces,
The dawn-beams on their faces,
Looked out with straining sight
The crowd that there had waited,
Each heart with anguish freighted,
As slow the storm abated
Along the Brittas strand;
And how they cheered us, rending
The winds, as slow ascending,
Beneath our burthens bending,
We waded to the land;

And when the last was landed,
And homeward faint and cold
We turned, how, eager-handed,
(Guy leading as of old),
High on their shoulders proudly
They set me, cheering loudly,
And bore me on, declaring
The triumph of my daring;--
And how my love I told
That eve amid the gloaming
To Rose as we were roaming
Where Aughrim stream was foaming,
And how she smiled and sighed,
And,'mid the sunset's splendour,
Laying her white hand slender
In mine in love's surrender,
My prayer no more denied.