Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!'

1 The story of Skipper Ireson was told to Whittier by a schoolmate from Marblehead, when he was a student in Haverhill Academy (see Pickard's Life, vol. ii, p. 409, and the poem A Sea Dream '), and he began to write the ballad at that time, in 1828. It was finished, and published in the second number of the Atlantic Monthly, in 1857. Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic, suggested the use of dialect in the refrain (see Scudder's Life of Lowell, vol. i, pp. 417-418, and Lowell's Letters, the letter to Whittier of Nov. 4, 1857).

Mr. Samuel Roads, Jr., in his History of Marblehead, published in 1879, tried to show that Captain Ireson was not responsible for the abandonment of the disabled ship. Whittier characteristically wrote to Mr. Roads:

I have now no doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead. I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative of the ballad was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth and justice that the real facts are given in thy book. I certainly would not knowingly do injustice to any one, dead or living.

'I am very truly thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER.'

Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old,

Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold; Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay,

Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray.

The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din

Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in;

And the lore of home and fireside, and the legendary rhyme,

Make the task of duty lighter which the true man owes his time.

20

70

Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the dusky hall: And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed for break of day;

But the captain closed his Bible: 'Let us cease from man, and pray !'

To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers seemed near, And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear. Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare,

Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the captain led in prayer.

Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall,

But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all,