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Four, only four did he say

Saved! and the other ones? Eh?

Why do they call?

Why are they all

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They ran through the streets of the sea-port town:
They peered from the decks of the ships that lay:
The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
Was never as cold or white as they.

"Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!
Run for your shallops, gather your men,
Scatter your boats on the lower bay."

Good cause for fear! In the thick mid-day
The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
Filled with the children in happy play
Parted its moorings, and drifted clear,

Drifted clear beyond reach or call,

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Thirteen children they were in all,
All adrift in the lower bay!

Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
She will not float till the turning tide!"
Said his wife, "My darling will hear my call,
Whether in sea or Heaven she bide."

And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,

Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.

The fog drove down on each labouring crew,
Veiled each from each and the sky and shore :
There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
And the lap of water and creak of oar;

And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown
O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,

But not from the lips that had gone before.

They come no more. But they tell the tale,
That, when fogs are thick on the harbour reef,
The mackerel fishers shorten sail,

For the signal they know will bring relief:
For the voices of children, still at play
In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
Through channels whose waters never fail.

It is but a foolish shipman's tale,

A theme for a poet's idle page;

But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

JOHN HAY.

b 1838).

THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.

The King was sick. His cheek was red,
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.

But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came by the score.

Thy did not cure him. He cut off their heads,
And sent to the schools for more.

At last two famous doctors came,

And one was as poor as a rat,
He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.

The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble:
If they recovered, they paid him well;
If they died, their heirs paid double.

Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.

The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."

"Hang him up," roared the King in a gale

In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;

The other leech grew a shade pale;

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran

The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,

And fast their horses ran,

And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.

They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waist in stays,
And women that short hose wore.

They saw two men by the road side sit,
And both bemoaned their lot:

For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.

At last they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;

He whistled, and sang, and laughed, and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.

The weary courtiers paused and looked

At the scamp so blithe and gay;

And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend! You seem to be happy to-day."

"O yes, fair Sirs," the rascal laughed,

And his voice rang free and glad;

"An idle man has so much to do

That he never has time to be sad."

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