| |
| IN Mather’s Magnalia Christi, | |
| Of the old colonial time, | |
| May be found in prose the legend | |
| That is here set down in rhyme. | |
| |
| A ship sailed from New Haven, | 5 |
| And the keen and frosty airs | |
| That filled her sails at parting | |
| Were heavy with good men’s prayers. | |
| |
| “O Lord! if it be thy pleasure,”— | |
| Thus prayed the old divine,— | 10 |
| “To bury our friends in the ocean, | |
| Take them, for they are thine!” | |
| |
| But Master Lamberton muttered, | |
| And under his breath said he, | |
| “This ship is so crank and walty, | 15 |
| I fear our grave she will be!” | |
| |
| And the ships that came from England, | |
| When the winter months were gone, | |
| Brought no tidings of this vessel | |
| Nor of Master Lamberton. | 20 |
| |
| This put the people to praying | |
| That the Lord would let them hear | |
| What in his greater wisdom | |
| He had done with friends so dear. | |
| |
| And at last their prayers were answered:— | 25 |
| It was in the month of June, | |
| An hour before the sunset | |
| Of a windy afternoon, | |
| |
| When, steadily steering landward, | |
| A ship was seen below, | 30 |
| And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, | |
| Who sailed so long ago. | |
| |
| On she came, with a cloud of canvas, | |
| Right against the wind that blew, | |
| Until the eye could distinguish | 35 |
| The faces of the crew. | |
| |
| Then fell her straining topmasts, | |
| Hanging tangled in the shrouds, | |
| And her sails were loosened and lifted, | |
| And blown away like clouds. | 40 |
| |
| And the masts, with all their rigging, | |
| Fell slowly, one by one, | |
| And the hulk dilated and vanished, | |
| As a sea-mist in the sun! | |
| |
| And the people who saw this marvel | 45 |
| Each said unto his friend, | |
| That this was the mould of their vessel, | |
| And thus her tragic end. | |
| |
| And the pastor of the village | |
| Gave thanks to God in prayer, | 50 |
| That, to quiet their troubled spirits, | |
| He had sent this Ship of Air. | |
| |
