Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/183

 PART IV

The Inchcape Rock.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,

The ship was still as she could be;

Her sails from heaven received no motion;

Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,

The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;

So little they rose, so little they fell,

They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;

On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,

And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,

The mariners heard the warning Bell;

And then they knew the perilous Rock,

And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was shining gay;

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,

And there was joyance in their sound.

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