The ink-black sky told every eye But still that jolly mariner A thing, as gossip-nurses know, His hat was new, or, newly glazed, His jacket, like a mariner's, His ample trousers, like St. Paul, And now the fretting, foaming tide The bounding pinnace played a game A game that, on the good dry land, 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! Still south by east the little boat, Now out of sight, between two waves, Like greedy swine that feed on mast, The sullen sky grew black above, 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, Now thick and fast and far aslant 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, For why? he had that infant's caul; Before the ebb-tide sped, That, like that infant, he should die, And with a watery head! The rushing brine flowed in apace; Fate seemed to call him on, and he And so he went, still trusting on, 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, 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 top of pale and livid green, With quaking sails the little boat Then, rushing down the nether slope, 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; The sheet's to windward taut and stiff, O! the Lively where is she? Her capsized keel is in the foam, The wild gull, sailing overhead, The ensuing wave, with horrid foam, The jolly boatman's drowning scream 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 I've got myself a sort of how to larboard, And this is what it was that warped my legs. - When I gets under weigh, Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, Get under sail, The only one there was to make the trip. 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, 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. |