A. D. 1580.

Aн tyrant Love, Megara's serpents bearing,

Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart? Ah, ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing, Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart? Is this my meed? Must dragon's teeth alone In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown? Nay, gentlest Cupid; 'twas my pride unbid me; Nay, guiltless dove; by mine own wound I fell. To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me:

I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell; Forever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel.

On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel.

A. D. 1740.

I.

ОH England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and

high ;

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I; And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see again, As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.

II.

There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and

stout,

All furnished well with small arms and cannons round

about;

And a thousand men in Avès made laws so fair and free To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.

III.

Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold,

Which he wrung by cruel tortures from the Indian folk

of old;

Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as

stone,

Which flog men and keel-haul them and starve them to the bone.

IV.

Oh the palms grew high in Avès and fruits that shone

like gold,

And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to

behold;

And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did

flee,

To welcome gallant sailors a sweeping in from sea.

V.

Oh 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.

VI.

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.

VII.

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.

VIII.

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.

A. D. 1848.

THE merry brown hares came leaping
Over the crest of the hill,

Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
Under the moonlight still.

Leaping late and early,

Till under their bite and their tread

The swedes, and the wheat, and the barley, Lay cankered, and trampled and dead.

A poacher's widow sat sighing

On the side of the white chalk bank,
Where under the gloomy fir-woods
One spot in the ley throve rank.

She watched a long tuft of clover,
Where rabbit or hare never ran;

For its black sour haulm covered over
The blood of a murdered man