Pease tee tee ry ee

 

DOROTHY, . 31

Off to the moor, as from the strained bow the arrow goes leaping.

For a mile the fierce gale she battled; then down to the sands forced to scramble
Where the huge waves were rolling, and through the hollow rocks booming their thunder,
Sped on, through the foam plashing knee-deep, ever fighting for footing,

Till she came to the burn white with wrath, as if with the mad sea leaguing

In vengeance against the foe who, for its prey, with it would wrestle.

What though her heart sank? in she plunged — for, O, the men that were drowning!
Waist-deep, then overhead sinking, seized by a swirling eddy,

Struggling up to her feet, on pressing again, till once more on the moorland,

She breasted the gale, flinging to it the wet garments that hindered.

So reached she at last the house where lived the coxswain of the lifeboat,

And sank at the threshold, swooning, but gasping with wan lips: “ The schooner —

 

On the letch — norrad!” Well knew the coxswain the need that had sent her.
“ Look after the lass, gude wife!” he shouted, and ran for the lifeboat.

_ The blessed lifeboat! how it shot out into the surges, bounding

Away and away — around the Point —close up to the wreck, undaunted !
And lo! the six men dropped into it, saved, as solemnly joyful
As if into heaven they had come, out of death, with its chrism on their foreheads.

Only a simple lass still is Dorothy, never dreaming

That she has done aught heroic. Yet, sometimes, 0’ nights, when the stormwind
Is out, shé smiles as she lays her head on its rude straw pillow,

To think of the six men, somewhere safe, living and loving,

Because she dared through the gale and the foam to run for the lifeboat.