As we have seen, the above poem is mainly a subjective study. As an objective study, "The White Ship" shows us an equal degree of power, appealing to the visual faculty. We cannot read it all, nor is this necessary. A few examples will be sufficient. This ballad is in distichs, and has a striking refrain. The story is founded upon historical fact. The son and heir of the English king Henry I, together with his sister and many knights and ladies, was drowned on a voyage from France to England, and it is said that the king was never again seen to smile after he had heard the news. Rossetti imagines the story told by a survivor--a butcher employed on the ship, the lowest menial on board. Such a man would naturally feel very differently toward the prince from others of the train, and would criticise him honestly from the standpoint of simple morality. Eighteen years till then he had seen, And the devil's dues in him were eighteen. The peasant thus estimates the ruler who breaks the common laws of God and man. Nevertheless he is just in his own way, and can appreciate unselfishness even in a man whom he hates. He was a Prince of lust and pride; He showed no grace till the hour he died. . . . . . . . God only knows where his soul did wake, But I saw him die for his sister's sake. It is a simple mind of this sort that can best tell a tragical story; and the butcher's story is about the most perfect thing imaginable of its kind. Here also we have one admirable bit of subjective work, the narration of the butcher's experience in the moment of drowning. I suppose you all know that when one is just about to die, or in danger of sudden death, the memory becomes extraordinarily vivid, and things long forgotten flash into the mind as if painted by lightning, together with voices of the past. I Berold was down in the sea; Passing strange though the thing may be, Of dreams then known I remember me. Not dreams in the sense of visions of sleep, but images of memory. Blithe is the shout on Harfleur's strand When morning lights the sails to land: And blithe is Honfleur's echoing gloam When mothers call the children home: And high do the bells of Rouen beat When the Body of Christ goes down the street. These things and the like were heard and shown In a moment's trance 'neath the sea alone; And when I rose, 'twas the sea did seem, And not these things, to be all a dream.