Ipswich Bar, E. & B. Bates.

Ipswich Bar.
by Esther and Brainard Bates.

The mist lay still on Heartbreak Hill,
The sea was cold below,
The waves rolled up, and one by one,
Broke heavily and slow,

And round the hills the grey gulls fled,
The gannet whistled past;
Across the dunes the wailing loons
Hid from the rising blast.

The moaning wind, which all day long
Had haunted marsh and lea,
Went mad at night, and, beating round,
Fled shrieking to the sea.

Old Harry Main, wild Harry Main,
Upon the shifting sand
Had built a flaming beacon-light
To lure the ships to land.

“The storm breaks out and far to-night,
They seek a port to bide;
God rest ye, sirs! On Ipswich Bar
Your ships shall surely ride.

“They see my fires, my dancing fires!
They lay their courses down!
And ill betide the mariners
Who make for Ipswich town,

“For mine the wreck, and mine the gold,
And none can lay the blame!
So lay ye down, to-night, good sirs,
And I will feed the flame!”

Oh, dark the night, and wild the gale!
The skipper higher turned,
To where, afar, on Ipswich Bar,
The treacherous beacon burned.

With singing shrouds and snapping sheets
The vessel swiftly bore,
And headed for the guiding lights
Which shone along the shore.

The shoaling waters told no tale,
The tempest made no sign,
‘Til full before her plunging bows
Flashed out a whitened line—

She struck! She heeled! The parting stays
Flew by with mast and spar—
And then the wind and rain beat out
The light on Ipswich Bar.

Grey dawn beneath a dying storm:
A figure gaunt and thin
Went splashing through the tangled sedge
To drag the treasure in;

For when the darkness broke away,
The lances of the moon
Went pointing where lay bow in air
A wrecking picaroon.

What matter if the open day
Bore witness to his shame?
‘Twas his the wreck—and his the gold—
And none had seen to blame…

He did not know that eyes of men
Were watching from afar,
As Harry Main went back and forth
The length of Ipswich Bar.

They told the Ipswich fisher-folk,
Who, all aghast and grim,
Went running down through Pudding Lane
In maddened search for him;

No word, no blow, no bitter jest.
They did not strike nor mar;
But short the shrift of Harry Main
That day on Ipswich Bar.

They marched him out at ebb of tide
Where lay the shattered wreck,
And bound him to the dripping rocks
With chains about his neck.

With chains about his guilty neck,
They left him to the wave;
The lapping tide rose eagerly,
To hide the wrecker’s grave.

And now, when sudden storms strike down,
With hoarse and threatening tones,
Old Harry Main must rise again
And gird his sea-wracked bones,

To coil a cable maid of sand,
Which ever breaks in twain,
As round about the salted marsh
Is heard his clanking chain.

When rock and shoal are white with foam,
The watchers on the sands
Can see his ghostly form rise up
And wring its fettered hands,

And out to sea, his cries are heard
Above the storm, and far,
Where, cold and still, old Heartbreak Hill
Looks down on Ipswich Bar.