Like greedy swine that feed on mast,-
The waves her mast seemed eating!

The sullen sky grew black above,
The wave as black beneath;
Each roaring billow showed full soon
A white and foamy wreath;
Like angry dogs that snarl at first,
And then display their teeth.

The boatman looked against the wind,
The mast began to creak,

The wave, per saltum, came and dried, In salt, upon his cheek!

The pointed wave against him reared, As if it owned a pique!

Nor rushing wind nor gushing wave

The boatman could alarm,

But still he stood away to sea,

And trusted in his charm;

He thought by purchase he was safe,

And armed against all harm!

Now thick and fast and far aslant

The stormy rain came pouring,
He heard, upon the sandy bank,
The distant breakers roaring, -
A groaning intermitting sound,
Like Gog and Magog snoring!

The sea-fowl shrieked around the mast,

Ahead the grampus tumbled,

And far off, from a copper cloud,

The hollow thunder rumbled;

It would have quailed another heart,
But his was never humbled.

For why? he had that infant's caul;
And wherefore should he dread?
Alas! alas! he little thought,

Before the ebb-tide sped,

That, like that infant, he should die,

And with a watery head!

The rushing brine flowed in apace;
His boat had ne'er a deck:

Fate seemed to call him on, and he
Attended to her beck;

And so he went, still trusting on,
Though reckless-to his wreck!

For as he left his helm, to heave
The ballast-bags a-weather,

Three monstrous seas came roaring on,

Like lions leagued together.

The two first waves the little boat

Swam over like a feather,

The two first waves were past and gone,

And sinking in her wake;

The hugest still came leaping on,

And hissing like a snake.

Now helm a-lee! for through the midst

The monster he must take!

Ah, me! it was a dreary mount!

Its base as black as night,

Its top of pale and livid green,
Its crest of awful white,
Like Neptune with a leprosy,-
And so it reared upright!

With quaking sails the little boat
Climbed up the foaming heap,
With quaking sails it paused a while,
At balance on the steep;

Then, rushing down the nether slope,
Plunged with a dizzy sweep!

Look, how a horse, made mad with fear, Disdains his careful guide;

So now the headlong, headstrong boat, Unmanaged, turns aside,

And straight presents her reeling flank

Against the swelling tide!

The gusty wind assaults the sail;

Her ballast lies a-lee!

The sheet's to windward taut and stiff,

O! the Lively-where is she?

Her capsized keel is in the foam,

Her pennon's in the sea!

The wild gull, sailing overhead,
Three times beheld emerge
The head of that bold mariner,
And then she screamed his dirge!
For he had sunk within his grave,
Lapped in a shroud of surge!

The ensuing wave, with horrid foam,
Rushed o'er and covered all;

The jolly boatman's drowning scream
Was smothered by the squall,
Heaven never heard his cry, nor did
The ocean heed his caul.

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

369

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 growed a good deal

straighter,

But they were badly nursed,

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 warped my legs.

Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,
That fouled 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!

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: 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

370

A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

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,
Though I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bowline,
But always making lee-way to the ditch,
And yawed her head about all sorts of ways.
The devil sink the craft!

And wasn't she trimendous slack in stays!
We couldn't, nohow, 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,

And square his yard-arms, and brace up

In rig all snug and clever,

his elbows,

Just while his craft was taking in her water?
I didn't like my berth, though, howsomdever,
Because the yarn, you see, kept getting tauter, ·
Says I-I wish this job was rather shorter!

The chase had gained a mile

Ahead, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking: