The Wreck of the Hesperus

The Wreck of the Hesperus
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Does anybody read or recite poetry anymore? I had a favorite uncle who passed away a few years ago at the age of 96. He had elocution lessons in school and could recite many poems from memory. A lost art. This was one of his favorites.

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
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,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

There are other stanzas but I just included those few. Apparently, this was based on a true story, where a ship sank in a wintry storm.