Last night, the moon had a golden ring: 44 down, 9,148 to go.

Who would have thought that there would be not one but two songs about an obscure shipwreck? Not me, and I think of a lot of stuff that you wouldn't expect people to be thinking about. A lot of stuff.

But it never occurred to me, in all that thinking that I do, that there would be two songs titled "Wreck of the Hesperus." Two whole songs about it, and I don't even know what it was.

So the official song 43 is "Wreck of the Hesperus" by George Harrison. But I can't find a Youtube video for that, so I'm going to instead cheat and post a song that I don't have on my iPod but which is cool and which I will have, eventually, and while I listen to that I'm going to go and figure out what the "Hesperus" was and why its wrecking was so significant to songwriters.



Okay, I'm back. The "Wreck of the Hesperus" was a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. You can tell it's a good, important poem because it has a number before the title. Let's read it together:

777. The Wreck of the Hesperus

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

IT was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 5 Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, 10 And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old Sailòr, Had sailed to the Spanish Main, ‘I pray thee, put into yonder port, 15 For I fear a hurricane. ‘Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!’ The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. 20 Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain 25 The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable’s length. ‘Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, And do not tremble so; 30 For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow.’ He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, 35 And bound her to the mast. ‘O father! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh say, what may it be?’ ‘’Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!’— And he steered for the open sea. 40 ‘O father! I hear the sound of guns, Oh say, what may it be?’ ‘Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!’ ‘O father. I see a gleaming light, 45 Oh say, what may it be?’ But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, 50 The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That savèd she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, 55 On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe. 60 And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, 65 She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, 70 But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, 75 Ho! ho! the breakers roared! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast. 80 The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 85 In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

Seriously: That was awesome. Why did I never read that poem in school? It just goes to show you: If it wasn't for British rockers, we'd never learn anything.

Down... to go is the life I love set to the music I love. Yes, I added more songs to the iPod; read song 43 here.


Punk Rock Pickle:

Take That, Salad!
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brianefp

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