When passing through this narrow strait, (Stony and dark and desolate,) Benjamin can faintly hear A voice that comes from some one near: The voice, to move commiseration, Prolonged its earnest supplication "This storm that beats so furiously This dreadful place! oh pity me!" While this was said, with sobs between, There came a flash a startling glare, Another voice in tone as hoarse As a swoln brook with rugged course, Cried out, "Good brother, why so fast? I've had a glimpse of you avast! Or, since it suits you to be civil, Take her at once - for good and evil!" "It is my Husband," softly said The Woman, as if half afraid: By this time she was snug within, Through help of honest Benjamin; She and her Babe, which to her breast With thankfulness the mother pressed; And now the same strong voice more near Said, cordially, "My Friend, what cheer? Rough doings these! as God's my judge, The sky owes somebody a grudge! We've had in half an hour or less A twelve-month's terror and distress!" Then Benjamin entreats the Man Would mount, too, quickly as he can: The Sailor, Sailor now no more, But such he had been heretofore, To courteous Benjamin replied, "Go you your way, and mind not me; My Ass and fifty things beside,- The Waggon moves and with its load Descends along the sloping road; And to a little tent hard by For when, at closing-in of day, The Sailor gathers up his bed, CANTO SECOND. IF Wytheburn's modest House of Prayer, Been mistress also of a Clock, (And one, too, not in crazy plight) Twelve strokes that, Clock would have been telling Under the brow of old Helvellyn Its bead-roll of midnight, Then, when the Hero of my Tale Was passing by, and down the vale (The vale now silent, hushed I ween Intent to use his utmost haste, Gained ground upon the Waggon fast Dinning from the CHERRY TREE! Thence the sound — the light is there As Benjamin is now aware, Who, to his inward thoughts confined, Although before in no dejection, At this insidious recollection * A term well known in the North of England, a applied to rural Festivals, where young persons meet in the evening |