The top-sail yards point to the wind, boys,
See all clear to reef each course;
Let the fore-sheet go, don't mind, boys,
Though the weather should be worse.
Fore and aft the sprit-sail yard get,
Reef the mizen, see all clear;

Hands up, each preventure-brace set,
Man the fore-yard, cheer, lads, cheer?

Now the dreadful thunder's roaring,
Peal on peal contending clash,
On our heads fierce rain falls pouring,
In our eyes blue lightnings flash.
One wide water all around us,

All above us one black sky,

Different deaths at once surround us:
Hark! what means that dreadful cry?

The foremast's gone, cries every tongue out,
O'er the lee, twelve feet 'bove deck;
A leak beneath the chest-tree's sprung out,
Call all hands to clear the wreck.

Quick the lanyards cut to pieces :
Come, my hearts, be stout and bold :
Plumb the well-the leak increases,

Four feet water in the hold!

While o'er the ship wild waves are beating,
We for wives or children mourn;
Alas! from hence there's no retreating,
Alas! to them there's no return.

Still the leak is gaining on us :

Both chain-pumps are chok'd belowHeav'n have mercy here upon us!

For only that can save us now.

O'er the lee-beam is the land, boys,

Let the guns o'erboard be thrown;
To the pump let every hand, boys;
See! our mizen-mast is gone.

The leak we've found, it cannot pour fast,
We've lighten'd her a foot or more;
Up, and rig a jury foremast,

She rights, she rights! boys-we're off shore.

Now once more on joys we're thinking,
Since kind Heav'n has sav'd our lives;
Come, the can, boys! let's be drinking
To our sweethearts and our wives.
Fill it up, about ship wheel it,

Close to our lips a brimmer join;
Where's the tempest now-who feels it?
None-the danger's drown'd in wine.

[George Alexander Stevens was a well known actor towards the close of the last century, but his fame was ephemeral, for his name is now seldom or never mentioned. His songs were in such repute in his day, that various collections of them were pirated by knavish booksellers, to the great injury of the author; few of them reach mediocrity. The following extract from a letter, will give some idea of the ingenious lecturer on heads; it is dated from a gaol at Yarmouth, into which he had been thrown for debt:

"This week's eating finishes my last waistcoat; and next, I must atone for my errors on bread and water. A wig has fed me two days the trimming of a waistcoat as long-a pair of velvet breeches paid my washerwoman-and a ruffle-shirt has found me in shaving. My coats I swallowed by degrees; the sleeves I breakfasted upon for weeks-the body, skirts, &c. served me for dinner two months-my silk stockings have paid my lodgings, and two pair of new pumps enabled me to smoke several pipes. It is incredible how my appetite (barometer like) rises in proportion as my necessities make their

terrible advances. I here could say something droll about a stomach; but it is ill jesting with edged tools, and I am sure that is the sharpest thing about me."

'The Storm' has frequently however been printed as the composi tion of Falconer, the author of the Shipwreck. The Naval Chronicle, in vol. 2, p. 233, says, in support of the northern authorship.

"This beautiful and descriptive ballad has been long given with singular injustice to George Alexander Stevens; we have particular pleasure in again bringing it back to its real author, the unfortunate Falconer, by whom it was originally composed. It was astonishing that the public should so readily believe it the production of a writer, who, however qualified to celebrate the mad riot of the bacchanalian crew, was utterly unacquainted with the sublime terror of the ocean, which poor Falconer thus sung with all the sublimity and experienced observation of a seaman."]

I SAILED FROM THE DOWNS.

CHARLES DIBDIN.

I sail'd from the Downs in the Nancy,
My jib how she smack'd thro' the breeze,
She's a vessel as tight to my fancy

As ever sail'd on the salt seas.

So, adieu to the white cliffs of Briton,
Our girls, and our dear native shore,
For if some hard rock we should split on,
We shall never see them any more.
But sailors were born for all weathers,
Great guns let it blow high, blow low,
Our duty keeps us to our tethers,

And where the gale drives we must go.

When we enter'd the gut of Gibraltar,

I verily thought she'd have sunk;
For the wind so began for to alter,
She yaw'd just as thof she was drunk.
The squall tore the mainsail to shivers,—
Helm a-weather, the hoarse boatswain cries,
Brace the fore-sail athwart, see she quivers,
As thro' the rude tempest she flies.

The storm came on thicker and faster,
As black just as pitch was the sky:
When truly a doleful disaster

Befell three poor sailors and I :

Ben Buntline, Sam Shroud, and Dick Handsail,
By a blast that came furious and hard,
Just while we were furling the inainsail,

Were every

soul swept from the yard.

Poor Ben, Sam, and Dick cried Peccavi;
As for I, at the risk of my neck,
While they sunk down in peace to old Davy,
Caught a rope and so landed on deck,

Well, what would you have? we were stranded,
And out of a fine jolly crew,

Of three hundred that sail'd never landed,
But I, and I think twenty-two.

After thus we at sea had miscarried,
Another guess-way sat the wind,
For to England I came and got married,
To a lass that was comely and kind :
But whether for joy or vexation,

We know not for what we were born;
Perhaps I may find a kind station,
Perhaps I may touch at Cape Horn.

For sailors were born for all weathers,
Great guns let it blow high, blow low,
Our duty keeps us to our tethers,

And where the gale drives we must go.

YE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM.

CHARLES DIBDIN.

Ye flowers that bloom in yonder mead,
Where flows the crystal tide,
And nibling lambkins sportive feed,
Along the current's side,

Ye oft have seen, and smil'd to see,
My love to him, his love to me.

Witness, ye flocks, ye herds, ye fawns,

That o'er the pastures stray,

Witness ye mountains, groves, and lawns,
Each painted child of May :
The greatest bliss I e'er can prove
Is to return my shepherd's love.

PEGGY PERKINS.

CHARLES DIBDIN.

Let bards elate

Of Sue and Kate,

And Moggy take their fill O
And pleas'd rehearse,

In jingling verse

The lass of Richmond Hill O.