Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1282, 25 March 1872, Page 2

Select Poetry.

A GREYPORT LEGEND. BRET HAUTE. They ran through the streets of the seaport town, They peered from the decks of the ships where they The cold sea-fog that came whitening down [lay Was never as cold or as white as they. "Ho, Starbuck, and Pinckney, and Tenterden \ Run for jour shallops, gather your men; Scatter your boats on the lower bay.

Good cause for fear; in the thick mid-day The hulk that lay by the rotting pier, Filled with the children in happy play, Parted its moorings and drifted clearDrifted clear beyond reach or call, Thirteen children were there in all, All adrift in the lower bay."

Said a hard-faced skipper, " God help us all! She will not float till the morning tide! " Said his wife, " My darling will hear my call, Whether in sea or heaven she bide." And she lifted a quavering voice on high, Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry, Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.

The fog drove down on each laboring crew, Veiled each from each and sky and shore. There was not a sound but the breath they drew, And the lap of water and creak of oar; And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown, O'er leagues of clover and cold grey stone, But not from the lips that had gone before.

They come no more; but they tell the tale That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef, The mackerel-fishers shorten sail, For the .signal they know will bring relief; For the voices of ohildren, still at play, In a phantom hulk that drifts away Through channels whose waters never fail.

It is but a foolish shipman's tale, A theme for a poet's idle page, But still, when the mists of doubt prevail, And we lie becalmed by the shores of age, We hear from the misty troubled shore The voices of children gone before, Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

—Atlantic Monthly