VII.

Said she, "I loved a soldier once,

For he was blythe and brave; But I will never have a man

With both legs in the grave!

VI.

"Before you had those timber toes,
Your love I did allow,

But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now!"

1X.

"O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray!

For all your jeering speeches,
At duty's call, I left my legs
In Badajos's breaches!"

66

X.

"Why, then," said she, "you've lost the feet

Of legs in war's alarms,

And now you cannot wear your shoes

Upon your feats of arms!"

XI.

"O, false and fickle Nelly Gray!

I know why you refuse:

Though I've no feet-some other man

Is standing in my shoes!

XII.

"I wish I ne'er had seen your face;

But, now, a long farewell !
For you will be my death;-alas!
You will not be my Nell!"

XIII.

Now when he went from Nelly Gray,

His heart so heavy got

And life was such a burthen grown,

It made him take a knot!

XIV.

So round his melancholy neck,
A rope he did entwine,

And, for his second time in life,

Enlisted in the Line!

XV.

One end he tied around a beam,
And then removed his pegs,
And, as his legs were off,-of course,
He soon was off his legs!

XVI.

And there he hung, till he was dead
As any nail in town,-

For though distress had cut him up,
It could not cut him down!

XVII.

A dozen men sat on his corpse,

To find out why he died—

And they buried Ben in four cross-roads,

With a stake in his inside!

THE SEA-SPELL

"Cauld, cauld, he lies beneath the deep."

Old Scotch Ballad.

1.

IT was a jolly mariner!

The tallest man of three,

He loosed his sail against the wind.

And turned his boat to sea:

The ink-black sky told every eye,
A storm was soon to be!

II.

But still that jolly mariner
Took in no reef at all,
For, in his pouch, confidingly,
He wore a baby's caul;

A thing, as gossip-nurses know,
That always brings a squall!

III.

His hat was new, or, newly glazed,
Shone brightly in the sun;

His jacket, like a mariner's,

True blue as e'er was spun ;

His ample trowsers, like Saint Paul,

Bore forty stripes save one.

IV.

And now the fretting foaming tide
He steer'd away to cross;

The bounding pinnace play'd a game
Of dreary pitch and toss;

A game that, on the good dry land,
Is apt to bring a loss!

V.

Good Heaven befriend that little boat,

And guide her on her way!

A boat, they say, has canvas wings,

But cannot fly away!

Though, like a merry singing-bird,

She sits upon the spray!

VI.

Still east by south the little boat,
With tawny sail, kept beating:
Now out of sight, between two waves,
Now o'er th' horizon fleeting:

Like greedy swine that feed on mast,

The waves her mast seem'd cating!

VII.

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

VIII.

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 rear'd,
As if it own'd a pique!

IX.

Nor rushing wind, nor gushing wave,

That boatman could alarm,

But still he stood away to sea,

And trusted in his charm;

He thought by purchase he was safe,
And arm'd against all harm!

X.

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!

XI.

The sea-fowl shriek'd around the mast,

Ahead the grampus tumbled,

And far off, from a copper cloud,

The hollow thunder rumbled;

It would have quail'd another heart,

But his was never humbled.

XII.

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!

XIII.

The rushing brine flow'd in apace;
His boat had ne'er a deck;

Fate seem'd to call him on, and he
Attended to her beck;

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

XIV.

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.

XV.

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!

XVI.

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 rear'd upright!

XVII.

With quaking sails, the little boat

Climb'd up the foaming heap;

With quaking sails it paused awhile,
At balance on the steep;

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