And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did

flee,

To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea.

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

CV

A WELCOME

WELCOME, Wild North-easter.
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;

Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-easter!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter

Turns us out to play! Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy dyke; Hunger into madness Every plunging pike. Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky.

Hark! The brave North-easter!

Breast-high lies the scent,

On by holt and headland,

Over heath and bent.
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can over-ride you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;

You shall see a fox die

Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,

While the lazy gallants

Bask in ladies' eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
'Tis the hard grey weather

Breeds hard English men.

What's the soft South-wester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true-loves
Out of all the seas:

But the black North-easter,

Through the snowstorm hurled,

Drives our English hearts of oak Seaward round the world.

Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,

Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come; and strong within us
Stir the Vikings' blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;

Blow, thou wind of God!

Kingsley.

CVI

THE BIRKENHEAD

AMID the loud ebriety of War,

With shouts of 'la Republique' and 'la Gloire,'
The Vengeur's crew, 'twas said, with flying flag
And broadside blazing level with the wave
Went down erect, defiant, to their grave
Beneath the sea.-'Twas but a Frenchman's brag,
Yet Europe rang with it for many a year.
Now we recount no fable; Europe, hear!
And when they tell thee 'England is a fen
Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay,
Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey
For the first comer,' tell how the other day
A crew of half a thousand Englishmen
Went down into the deep in Simon's Bay!

Not with the cheer of battle in the throat,
Or cannon-glare and din to stir their blood,
But, roused from dreams of home to find their boat

Fast sinking, mustered on the deck they stood, Biding God's pleasure and their chief's command. Calm was the sea, but not less calm that band Close ranged upon the poop, with bated breath

But flinching not though eye to eye with Death! Heroes!

Who were those Heroes?

Veterans steeled

To face the King of Terrors mid the scaith
Of many an hurricane and trenched field?
Far other weavers from the stocking-frame;
Boys from the plough; cornets with beardless chin,
But steeped in honour and in discipline!

Weep, Britain, for the Cape whose ill-starred name,
Long since divorced from Hope suggests but shame,
Disaster, and thy Captains held at bay

By naked hordes; but as thou weepest, thank
Heaven for those undegenerate sons who sank
Aboard the Birkenhead in Simon's Bay!

Yule.

CVII

APOLLO

THROUGH the black, rushing smoke-bursts

Thick breaks the red flame;

All Etna heaves fiercely

Her forest-clothed frame.

Not here, O Apollo!

Are haunts meet for thee.

But, where Helicon breaks down

In cliff to the sea,