THE BALLAD OF THE AERONAUT. 259 



Then one was sitting on a throne, 



The demon king was he 

 Made answer in a louder tone, 

 " For the deed of daring he has done. 



Let us drown him in the sea !" 



Now darker grew the firmament 



When those awful words were spoken, 

 And think what a pang through my bosom wen* 

 When the solid ice beneath me rent, 



As though by lightning broken. 



And sourly smiled those statues chill 



At my terror and dismay 

 I cried a cry so loud and shrill, 

 That its me'mory almost haunts me still, 



So my vision passed away. 



But the scene which met my waking view, 



More fearful scarce could be, 

 One half my hideous dream was true 

 Beneath too well the sound I knew, 



I heard the roaring sea ! 



And down I dropped, with horrid haste 



To the boiling deep below 

 'Twas night and the pallid moon o'ercast 

 By ghostly clouds that scudded past, 



And shrilly the winds did blow. 



And soon across the surges dark 



We flew my car and I 

 No ship was near, a sheltering ark, 

 Nor beacon spires uplifted spark 



To guide the straining eye. 



Along, along, on our stormy way 



With furious speed we fled, 

 And I was blinded by the spray 

 Which dashed across me, as I lay, 



Till the sense of life was dead. 



I wakened it was noontide high, 



I lay on a vessel's deck, 



Whose captain viewed me with wondering eye 

 He had saved my life, as his ship passed by 



The torn and floating wreck. 



And when I told him of my flight 



He crossed his breast to hear, 

 For he deemed me sure, a wizard wight, 

 And felt, I was, no small delight 



To land me on Havre pier ! 



H. F. C. 



