As black as night-they turned to white, and cast against the cloud A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's shroud: Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run! Behold yon fatal billow rise-ten billows heaped in one! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast, As if the scooping sea contained one only wave, at last! Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift-pursuing grave; It seemed as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a wave! Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base! Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed- "Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?" With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath; A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft; O! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight As met my gaze, when first I looked on that accursed night! I've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams Hyenas, cats, blood-loving bats, and apes with hateful stare Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls, the lion and she-bear, Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite Detested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs All fantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast,But nothing like that GRIMLY ONE who stood beside the mast! His cheek was black- - his brow was black-his hair as dark: eyes and His hand was black, and where it touched it left a sable mark; His throat was black, his vest the same and when I looked beneath, His breast was black-all, all was black, except his grinning teeth. His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves! O, horror! e'en the ship was black that ploughed the inky waves! "Alas!" I cried, "for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake, My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child,- Loud laughed that SABLE MARINER, and loudly in return His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to stern A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce -- "Our skins," said he, แ coal; You'll find are black, ye see, because we carry your mother sure enough, and see your native fields For this here ship has picked you up- the Mary Ann of Shields!" SPRING. A NEW VERSION. "Ham. The air bites shrewdly - it is very cold. "COME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come!" The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name! Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders. Who do not feel as if they had a Spring Let others eulogize her floral shows; From me they cannot win a single stanza. I know her blooms are in full blow The Influenza. and so 's Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, Are things I sneeze at ! Fair is the vernal quarter of the year! . And fair its early buddings and its blowings- For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, I limp in agony,- I wheeze and cough; What wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory verse to hang on? Spring mild and gentle ! - yes, a Spring-heeled Jack To those he sprang on. In short, whatever panegyrics lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted! FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. A PATHETIC BALLAD. BEN BATTLE was a soldier bold, Now, as they bore him off the field, Now, Ben he loved a pretty maid, But when he called on Nelly Gray, แ And when she saw his wooden legs, "O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray Said she, "I loved a soldier once With both legs in the grave' |