A. DAY OF STORM.
'TWAS a day of storm, for the giant Atlantic, rolling in pride, Drawn by the full moon, driven by the fierce wind, tide upon tide,Flooded our poor little Channel. A hundred anxious eyes Were watching a breach new broken,—when suddenly someone cries, "A boat coming in !"—and, rounding the pierhead that hid her before, There, sure enough, was a stranger smack, head straight for theshore.
How will she land, where each wave is a mountain ? Too latefor how !
Run up a flag there to show her the right place ! She must land now !
She is close :—with a rush on the galloping wave-top,--a stand,. As the water sinks from beneath her,—her nose just touches the land.
And then (as rude hands, sacking a city, greedy of prey, Toss, in some littered chamber, a child's toy lightly away), A great wave rose from behind, and lifting her, towered, and broke, And flung her headlong, down on the hard beach, close to the folk.
Crash + But 'tie only her bowsprit gone,—she is saved somehow ; And a cheer broke out, for a hundred hands have hold of her now
And they say 'twas her bowsprit saved her, or she must have gone over then ; Her bowsprit it was that saved her ; and little they think, those men, Of one weak woman that prayed, as she watched them tempestdriven !
They say 'twas her bowsprit saved her ! I say, 'twas that prayer, and Heaven ! F. W. B.
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