Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, And ever the fitful gusts between The breakers were right beneath her bows, And a whooping billow swept the crew She struck where the white and fleecy waves But the cruel rocks, they gored her side, Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, At day-break, on the bleak sea-beach, To see the form of a maiden fair, The salt sea was frozen on her breast, And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, Christ save us all from a death like this, THE LUCK OF EDENHALL. FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. [The tradition upon which this ballad is founded, and the "shards of the Luck of Edenhall," still exist in England. The goblet is in the possession of Sir Christopher Musgrave, Bart. of Eden Hall, Cumberland, and is not so entirely shattered as the ballad leaves it.] OF Edenhall, the youthful Lord And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all, The butler hears the words with pain, Takes slow from its silken cloth again Then said the Lord, "This glass to praise, The grey-beard with trembling hand obeys; It beams from the Luck of Edenhall. Then speaks the Lord, and waves it light, Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite; ""Twas right a goblet the Fate should be First rings it deep, and full, and mild, Like to the song of a nightingale; Then like the roar of a torrent wild; Then mutters at last like the thunder's fall, The glorious Luck of Edenhall. "For its keeper takes a race of might, The fragile goblet of crystal tall; Kling! klang!—with a harder blow than all |