So her charms are so numerous, so various, so clever, They produce in my mind such a string,

That, my tongue once let loose, I could sing on for

ever,

And vary the oftener I sing.

Shall I tell you the secret ?—you've but to love truly,
Own a heart in the right place that's hung;
And, just as the prow to the helm answers duly,
That heart will lend words to the tongue.
No art do I boast, no skill I inherit,

Then do not of my praises ring;

But to Love and to Nature allow all the merit,
That taught me of Nancy to sing.

THE PRIDE OF THE OCEAN.

EE the shore lined with gazers, the tide comes in fast,

The confusion but hear! bear a hand
there, avast!

The blocks and the wedges the mallets obey,
And the shores and the stanchions are all cut away:
While with head like a lion, built tight fore and aft,
Broad amidships, lean bows, and taper abaft—
In contempt of all danger from quicksands and rocks,
The Pride of the Ocean is launch'd from the stocks.

Now the signal is flying, and, fleet in her course,
She chases a sail, far superior her force,
And now the brisk broadside is merrily pour'd,
And splinters, cut ropes, and masts go by the board:

Next yard-arm and yard-arm entangled they lie,
The tars loudly swearing to conquer or die;
Till hull'd and cut up, getting more than she likes,
To the Pride of the Ocean the enemy strikes.

The prize is sent home, and, alert in a trice,
They make gaskets and points, and they knot and
they splice;

While knowing Jack-tars of their gallantry talk, Tell who served with Boscawen, and Anson, and Hawke;

Till, all of a sudden, a calm, then a scud,

A tempest brings on that the face of the flood,
The thunder and lightning and wind so deform,
The Pride of the Ocean scarce lives out the storm.

And now, having nobly defended the cause
Of the nation, of freedom, religion, and laws,
Her timbers all crazy, all open her seams,

Torn and wounded her planks, and quite rotten her beams;

To the last humbly fated her country to aid,

Near the very same slip where her keel was first laid, No trace of her rate but her ports and her bulk, The Pride of the Ocean's cut down a sheer hulk.

THE TAR FOR ALL WEATHERS.

SAIL'D from the Downs in the Nancy, My jib! how she smack'd through 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 Britain,
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 tho' she was drunk.
The squall tore the mainsail to shivers,

Helm a-weather! the hoarse boatswain cries; Brace the foresail athwart; see she quivers, As through the rough tempest she flies. But sailors, &c.

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

Befel 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 mainsail,
Were ev'ry soul swept from the yard.
But sailors, &c.

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.
But sailors, &c.

After thus we at sea had miscarried,
Another guess way set 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, &c.

MOORINGS.

'VE heard, cried out one, that you tars tack and tack,

And at sea what strange dangers befel

you;

But I don't know what's moorings.-What, don't you? cries Jack,

Man your ear-tackle then, and I'll tell you :Suppose you'd a daughter, quite beautiful grown, And, in spite of her tears and implorings,

Some scoundrel abused her, and you knock'd him

down,

Why, d'ye see, he'd be safe at his moorings.

In life's voyage should you trust a false friend with the helm,

The top-lifts of his heart all a-kimbo,

A tempest of treachery your bark will o'erwhelm,
And your moorings will soon be in limbo;
But if his heart's timbers bear up against pelf,
And he's just in his reckonings and scorings,
He'll for you keep a look-out the same as himself,
And you'll find in his friendship safe moorings.

If wedlock's your port, and your mate, true and kind,
In all weathers will stick to her duty,

A calm of contentment shall beam in your mind,
Safe moor'd in the haven of beauty;
But if some frisky skiff, crank at every joint,
That listens to vows and adorings,

Shape your course how you will, still you'll make
Cuckold's Point,

To lay up like a beacon at moorings.

A glutton's safe moor'd, head and stern, by the gout; A drunkard's moor'd under the table;

In straws drowning men will Hope's anchor find out, While a hair's a philosopher's cable:

Thus mankind are a ship, life a boisterous main

Of Fate's billows, where all hear the roarings; Where for one calm of pleasure, we've ten storms of pain,

Till death brings us all to our moorings.