THE SEA-SPELL.

"Cauld, cauld, he lies beneath the deep."

It was a jolly mariner!

Old Scotch Ballad.

The tallest man of three,

He loosed his sail against the wind,

And turned his boat to sea:

The ink-black sky told every eye,

A storm was soon to be!

But still that jolly mariner

Took in no reef at all,

For, in his pouch, confidingly,

He wore a baby's caul;

A thing, as gossip-nurses know,

That always brings a squall!

His hat was new, or, newly glaz'd,

Shone brightly in the sun;

His jacket, like a mariner's,

True blue as e'er was spun ;

His ample trousers, like Saint Paul,

Bore forty stripes save one.

And now the fretting foaming tide

He steer'd away to cross;

The bounding pinnace play'd a game

Of dreary pitch and toss ;

A game that, on the good dry land,

Is apt to bring a loss!

Good Heaven befriend that little boat,

And guide her on her way!

A boat, they say, has canvass wings,

But cannot fly away

!

Though, like a merry singing-bird,

She sits

upon the spray!

Still south by east the little boat,
With tawny sail, kept beating:

Now out of sight, between two waves,
Now o'er th' horizon fleeting;

Like greedy swine that feed on mast,

The waves her mast seem'd eating!

The sullen sky grew black above,
The wave as black beneath;

Each roaring billow show'd full soon

A white and foamy wreath;

Like angry dogs that snarl at first,

And then display their teeth.

The boatman look'd 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 rear'd,

As if it own'd 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,
And arm'd against all harm !

Now thick and fast and far aslant,
The stormy rain came pouring,

He heard, upon the sandy bank,
The distant breakers roaring,—
A groaning intermitting sound,

Like Gog and Magog snoring!

The sea-fowl shriek'd around the mast,

A-head the grampus tumbled,

And far off, from a copper cloud,

The hollow thunder rumbled;

It would have quail'd another heart,

But his was never humbled.

For why? he had that infant's caul; And wherefore should he dread?

Alas! alas! he little thought,

Before the ebb-tide sped,

That, like that infant, he should die,

And with a watery head!

The rushing brine flowed in apace ;

His boat had ne'er a deck:

Fate seem'd to call him on, and he

Attended to her beck;

And so he went, still trusting on,
Though reckless-to his wreck!

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,—

L