LOVE'S PROBATION.

IS said that love, the more 'tis tried,
Grows firmer, and lasts longer;
And when distress the knot has tied,
'Tis closer knit, and stronger.

She who with love's best joys would fain
That Fate should thus regale her,
Must share the peril and the pain
That mark the gallant sailor.

To hope in vain, in vain to sigh,
Deep sorrow to dissemble,
To shudder at each low'ring sky,
At every breeze to tremble,
While neither wishes, prayers, nor tears,
To ease her mind avail her-
These dreadful trials speak her fears
Who loves a gallant sailor.

And now, her mis'ries to refine,

To Fate she's forced to yield him;
For, with swoll'n eyes, she spells the line
Where newspapers have kill'd him :
This is the last of her alarms;

Cease, lovers, to bewail her;

He comes! and in her trembling arms
She holds her gallant sailor.

THE REWARD OF FIDELITY.

HE storm had ceas'd, the vessel, striving,
Lay on the frightful breakers, torn,
When, scarcely the drown'd crew

surviving,

Jack pined his destiny forlorn:

"Where are those friends whom late I cherish'd,
That manly, noble, honest band?
Ah! do I live, my messmates perish'd,
To wail them in a foreign land?

“Where is my love, my charming Kitty? Alas! unmindful of my grief,

To others' woes she gives her pity,

Nor thinks her Jack most wants relief. But see what numbers curious thronging, To view our mis'ry, crowd the strand; Hard fate's perhaps my life prolonging For murder in a foreign land.

"But do my flatt'ring eyes deceive me?

Or, if they do, what outstretch'd arms
Are these thus tender'd to relieve me?—
"Tis she! 'tis she! in all her charms.
My faith and truth, to so much beauty,
Fate, to reward, with partial hand
This pattern sends of love and duty,
To save me in a foreign land!"

HONESTY IN TATTERS.

HIS here's what I does-I, d'ye see,

a notion

forms

That our troubles, our sorrows, and

strife,

Are the winds and the billows that ferment the ocean, As we work through the passage of life:

And, for fear on life's sea lest the vessel should founder, To lament, and to weep, and to wail,

Is a pop-gun that tries to outroar a nine-pounder, All the same as a whiff in a gale.

Why now I, though hard fortune has pretty near starved me,

And my togs are all ragged and queer,

Ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend that had served

me,

Or caused ruined beauty a tear.

Now there, t'other day, when my messmate deceived

Do

me,

Stole my rhino, my chest, and our Poll,

you think in revenge, while their treachery grieved

me,

I a court-martial call'd?-Not at all.

This here on the matter was my way of argu'ing"Tis true, they han't left me a cross;

A vile wife and false friend, though, are gone by the bargain,

So the gain, d'ye see's more than the loss.

For though fortune's a jilt and has pretty, &c.

The heart's all;-when that's built as it should, sound and clever,

We go 'fore the wind like a fly;

But if rotten and crank, you may luff up

You'll always sail in the wind's eye:

for ever,

With palaver and nonsense I'm not to be paid off;
I'm adrift; let it blow, then, great guns,

A gale, a fresh breeze, or the old gemman's head off,
I takes life rough and smooth as it runs.

Content, though hard fortune, &c.

THE PRESSGANG.

(by Carey

H! where will you hurry my dearest?
Say, say, to what clime or what shore?
You tear him from me, the sincerest
That ever loved mortal before.
Ah! cruel, hard-hearted to press him,
And force the dear youth from my arms!
Restore him, that I may caress him,

And shield him from future alarms.

In vain you insult and deride me,

And make but a scoff at my woes:
You ne'er from my dear shall divide me,
I'll follow wherever he goes.

Think not of the merciless ocean,
My soul any terror can brave;
For, soon as the ship makes its motion,

So soon shall the sea be my grave.

THE VETERAN IN RETIREMENT.

HOUGH laid up in port, I am not outward bound;

In my upper works there's nothing
ailing;

My rudder and compass are both safe and sound,
And if call'd on, I'm ready for sailing.

I am decently stored with the comforts of life;
Have friends just what number I fancy;

And, what's more, I've a berth in the heart of my wife

My lovely, my valuable Nancy.

I well know that weevils and rats play me pranks,
At my cost who are eating and drinking;
This nibbles my biscuits, that gnaws at my planks,
And would fly off at once were I sinking;

Lord help the poor things!-they can't hurt my good

name;

Let them pilch, then, away to their fancy: They may pilfer my money, injure my fame, But they never can rob me of Nancy.

As well may the French kick against Dover rock, That keeps ev'ry threat at a distance:

All folly I pity, at slander I mock,

And I envy no one in existence.

And when I am boarded by grim Captain Death,
No sorrow shall trouble my fancy;

I'll strike like a man, and yield up my last breath
In a prayer for the health of my Nancy.