A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

When I think of that beautiful vision anew,
Oh! I seem but the biffin of what I was then!

XIV.

I am wither'd and worn by a premature care,

And my wrinkles confess the decline of my days; Old Time's busy hand has made free with my hair, And I'm seeking to hide it-by writing for bays!

337

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

THERE'S Some is born with their straight legs by natur-
And some is born with bow-legs from the first-
And some that should have grow'd a good deal straighter,
But they were badly nurs'd,

And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs
Astride of casks and kegs:

I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard,
And starboard,

And this is what it was that warp'd my legs.

'Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,

That foul'd my cable when I ought to slip;
But on the tenth of May,

When I gets under weigh,

Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship,
I sees the mail

Get under sail,

The only one there was to make the trip.

Well I gives chase,

But as she run

Two knots to one,

There warn't no use in keeping on the race!

338

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS,

Well-casting round about, what next to try on,
And how to spin,

I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion,
And bears away to leeward for the inn,
Beats round the gable,

And fetches up before the coach-horse stable:
Well-there they stand, four kickers in a row,
And so

I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable.
But riding isn't in a seaman's natur—
So I whips out a toughish end of yarn,
And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter
To splice me, heel to heel,

Under the she-mare's keel,

And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!

My eyes! how she did pitch!

And wouldn't keep her own to go in no line,
Tho' I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line,
But always making lee-way to the ditch,
And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways.
The devil sink the craft!

And wasn't she trimendus slack in stays!
We couldn't, no how, keep the inn abaft!
Well-I suppose

We hadn't run a knot-or much beyond—
(What will you have on it ?)—but off she goes,
Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond!

There I am!-all a-back!

So I looks forward for her bridle-gears,

To heave her head round on the t'other tack;
But when I starts,

The leather parts,

And goes away right over by the ears!

What could a fellow do,

Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes.
But trim myself upright for bringing-to,

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows,
In rig all snug and ciever,

Just while his craft was taking in her water?
I didn't like my burth tho', howsomdever,
Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter,—
Says I-I wish this job was rayther shorter!
The chase had gain'd a mile

A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking:
Now, all the while

Her body didn't take of course to shrinking.
Says I, she's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking—
And so she swell'd, and swell'd,

And yet the tackle held,

'Till both my legs began to bend like winkin.
My eyes! but she took in enough to founder!
And there's my timbers straining every bit,
Ready to split,

And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!

Well, there-off Hartford Ness,

We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together,

And can't contrive a signal of distress;
Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather,
Tho' sick of riding out-and nothing less;
When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn :—
Hollo! says I, come underneath her quarter!—
And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn.
So I gets off, and lands upon the road,
And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn,
A-standing by the water.

If I get on another, I'll be blow'd

And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd!

339

THE STAG-EYED LADY.

A MOORISH TALE.

Scheherazade immediately began the following story.

ALI Ben Ali (did you never read

His wond'rous acts that chronicles relate,-
How there was one in pity might exceed

The sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate
Upon the throne of greatness-great indeed,
For those that he had under him were great-
The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails,
Was a Bashaw-Bashaws have horses' tails,

Ali was cruel-a most cruel one!

'Tis rumour'd he had strangled his own motherHowbeit such deeds of darkness he had done,

'Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother And sister too-but happily that none

Did live within harm's length of one another, Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze

To endless night, and shorten'd the Moon's days.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit,

And makes a bad man-absolutely bad,

Made Ali wicked-to a fault :-'tis fit

Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had No curb upon his will-no not a bit

Wherefore he did not reign well-and full glad His slaves had been to hang him-but they falter'd And let him live unhang'd—and still unalter'd,

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,

Wherein an Attic owl might roost-a trail
Of bristly hair-that, honour'd and unshear'd,
Grew downward like old women and cow's tail:

Being a sign of age-some gray appear'd,

Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale;

But yet not so poetic as when Time

Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex
His royal bosom that he had no son,

No living child of the more noble sex,

To stand in his Morocco shoes-not one

To make a negro-pollard-or tread necks

When he was gone-doom'd, when his days were done, To leave the very city of his fame

Without an Ali to keep up his name.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love,

Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear

So call'd, because her lustrous eyes, above

All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;

Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,

And drumm'd with proxy-prayers Mohammed's ear,
Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,
Or else he was not praying to his Profit.

Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair

Will grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:
Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir,

Boy'd up his hopes, and even chose a name
Of mighty hero that his child should bear;
He made so certain ere his chicken came :

But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,
Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun

A little daughter to this world of sins ;Miss-fortunes never come alone-so one

Brought on another, like a pair of twins :