THE CARIB SEA
Or wonders whence from the distant world
Will come the next dim sail.
From the Northern Main, from England,
From France, the craft go by;
Yet sometimes one will stay her course
That must his wants supply.
III
In a Christmas storm the "Claribel" struck
At night, on the Pelican Shoal,
But the keeper's wife heard not the guns
And the bell's imploring toll.
She died ere the gale went down,
Wept by her daughters three—
Sun-flecked, yet fair, with their English hair,
Nymphs of the wind and sea.
With sail and oar some island shore
At will their skiffs might gain,
But they never had known the kiss of man,
Nor had looked on the peopled main,
Nor heard of the old man Atlas,
Who holds the unknown seas,
And the golden fruit that is guarded well
By the young Hesperides.
IV
Who steers by Castle Island Light
May hear the seamen tell
How one, the mate, alone was saved
From the wreck of the "Claribel;"
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