LITERATURE IN GRAMMAR GRADES 29 



of words and another of figures given the class in connection 

 with reading the poem. Probably the majority of the pupils 

 knew much or all of the poem by heart. The quotations 

 used are from memory, as is shown by the failure to remem- 

 ber the arrangement of lines. No corrections have been 

 made. 



THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. 



It was a cold stormy day, and the schooner Hesperus was 

 sailing along the coast of Massachusetts. The skipper had 

 taken his little daughter with him to bear him company. 

 She was a beautiful little girl with eyes as blue as the fairy 

 flax. 



He was standing beside helm watching the veering flaw 

 blow the smoke in different directions when an old sailor 

 came up to him and said, I pray thee put into yonder port, 

 for I fear a hurricane. Last night the moon had a golden 

 ring, and tonight no moon we see." The skipper did not 

 believe what the sailor had said and paid no attention to him. 



Down came the storm and smote the vessel in its strength. 

 The skipper called his little daughter to him and said, " do 

 not tremble so, for I can weather the roughest gale that ever 

 wind did blow." He wrapped her in his great seaman's 

 coat and bound her to a mast. 



The little girl said that she heard the church-bells ringing 

 and asked her father what they were and he answered that it 

 was the fog-bell on a rock bound coast, and he steered for 

 the open sea. She heard the sound of guns and asked her 

 father what it ment and he said, some ship in distress that 

 can not live in such an angry sea." Again she cried out 

 that she saw a gleaming light and asked what it was, but 

 her father answered never a word for he was dead. 



