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Th' exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of this trackless way;
That for itself can woo th' approaching fight,
And turn what some deem danger to delight;
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,
And where the feebler faint, can only feel-
Feel to the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken and its spirits soar !

No dread of death-if with us die our foes-
Save that it seems e'en duller than repose :
Come when it will-we snatch the life of life;
When lost-what recks it, by disease or strife?
Let him who crawls, enamoured of decay,
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;
Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul;
Ours with one pang, one bound, escapes control.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loathed his life may gild his grave.
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, e'en banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that drowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at last divide the prey,
And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow:
"How had the brave who fell exulted now!"

BYRON.

THE OLD BUCCANEER.

Он, England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high;

But England is a cruel place for such poor folk as I; And such a port for mariners I shall ne'er see again As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish Main.

There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout,

All furnished well with small arms and cannons round about;

And a thousand men in Avès made laws so fair and free To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.

Then we sailed against the Spaniard, with his hoards of plate and gold,

Which he wrung with cruel tortures from the Indian folk

of old;

Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,

Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone.

Oh, the palms grew high in Avès, and fruits that shone like gold,

And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold;

And the negro maids in Avès from bondage fast did flee,
To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea.

Oh, sweet it was in Avès to hear the landward breeze,
A-swing with good tobacco, in a net between the trees,
With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the

roar

Of the breakers on the reef outside, that never touched the shore.

But Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be; So the king's ships sailed on Avès, and quite put down

were we:

All day we fought like bulldogs; but they burst the booms at night;

And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the fight.

Nine days I floated, starving, and a negro lass beside; Till, for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young thing she died:

But as I lay a-gasping, a British sail came by,

And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die.

And now I'm old and going-I'm sure I can't tell where; One comfort is, this world's so hard, I can't be worse off there :

If I might be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main,
To the pleasant Isle of Avès, to look at it once again.
KINGSLEY.

THE LAST BUCCANEER.

THE winds were yelling, the waves were swelling,
The sky was black and drear,

When the crew, with eyes of flame, brought the ship without a name

Alongside the last Buccaneer.

"Whence flies your sloop full-sail before so fierce a gale,

When all others drive bare on the seas?

Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador,
Or the gulf of the rich Caribbees?"

"From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can sound,

Without rudder or needle we steer;

Above, below our bark dies the sea-fowl and the shark,

As we fly by the last Buccaneer.

“To-night shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde A loud crash and a louder roar,

And to-morrow shall the deep, with a heavy moaning, sweep

The corpses and wreck to the shore."

The stately ship of Clyde securely now may ride
In the breadth of the citron shades;

And Severn's towering mast securely now lies fast,
Through the seas of the balmy Trades.

From St. Jago's wealthy port, from Savannah's royal fort,

The seaman goes forth without fear;

For since that stormy night not a mortal hath had

sight

Of the flag of the last Buccaneer.

MACAULAY.

THE SLAVER.1

CRUEL as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below,
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood-
A Christian broker in the trade of blood!
Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells he steals, he kills for gold!
At noon, when sky and ocean, calm and clear,
Bend round his bark one blue unbroken sphere;
When dancing dolphins sparkle through the brine,
And sunbeam-circles o'er the water shine,
He sees no beauty in the heavens serene,
No soul-enchanting sweetness in the scene;
But darkly scowling at the glorious day,
Curses the winds that loiter on their way.
When swollen hurricanes the billows rise,
To meet the lightning midway from the skies;
When from the unburthen'd hold his shrieking slaves
Are cast, at midnight, to the hungry waves;
Not for his victims strangled in the deeps;
Not for his crimes the hardened slaver weeps ;
But grimly smiling, when the storms are o'er,
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more!
JAMES MONTGOMERY.

THE SLAVE'S DEATH.

WIDE o'er the tremulous sea

The moon spread her mantle of light;
And the gale, now lessening away,

Breathed soft on the bosom of night.

1 The present tense of these lines may be thought to be out of place to-day; but it is not. Although slaving is not now carried on as it was in the time of Montgomery (who, by-the-bye, was one of our early pioneers and sufferers in the cause of political and general freedom), it is still pursued in certain semi-civilised corners of the world.

On the forecastle Maratan stood,
And poured forth his sorrowful tale;
His tears fell unseen in the flood;

His sighs passed unheard in the gale.

"Ah, wretch!" in wild anguish he cried,
"From country and liberty torn!
Ah, Maratan, wouldst thou had died

Ere o'er the salt waves thou wert borne !

"Through the groves of Angola I strayed;
Love and hope made my bosom their home:
There I talked with my favourite maid,
Nor dreamed of the sorrow to come.

"From the thicket the man-hunter sprung.
My cries echoed loud through the air :
There was fury and wrath on his tongue;
He was deaf to the shrieks of despair.

"Accurs'd be the merciless band

That his love could from Maratan tear! And blasted this impotent hand

That was severed from all I held dear!

"Flow, ye tears, down my cheeks ever flow; Still let sleep from my eye-lids depart;

And still may the sorrows of woe

Drink deep of the stream of my heart!

"But, hark! on the silence of night
My Adila's accents I hear,
And mournful beneath the wan light
I see her loved image appear!

"Slow o'er the smooth ocean she glides,

As the mist that hangs light on the wave;

And fondly her lover she chides,

Who lingers so long from the grave.

"O Maratan, haste thee!' she cries,
'Here the reign of oppression is o'er;

The tyrant is robbed of his prize,
And Adila sorrows no more.'

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