ows rearing up in war
Like ragged roaring bears against the baiter,
With lots of froth upon the shingle shed,
Like stout poured out with a fine _beachy head_.

No open boat was open to a fare,
Or launched that morn on seven-shilling trips;
No bathing woman waded--none would dare
A dipping in the wave--but waived their dips;
No seagull ventured on the stormy air,
And all the dreary coast was clear of ships;
For two _lea shores_ upon the River Lea
Are not so perilous as one at sea.

Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene
Before us in such horrid hurly-burly,--
A boiling ocean of mixed black and green,
A sky of copper color, grim and surly,--
When lo, in that vast hollow scooped between
Two rolling Alps of water,--white and curly!
We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming,
Much like a first or last attempt at swimming!

Sometimes a hand--sometimes a little shoe--
Sometime a skirt--sometimes a hank of hair
Just like a dabbled seaweed rose to view,
Sometimes a knee--sometimes a back was bare--
At last a frightful summerset he threw
Right on the shingles. Any one could swear
The lad was dead--without a chance of perjury,
And battered by the surge beyond all surgery!

However, we snatched up the corse thus thrown,
Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it,
And after venting Pity's sigh and groan,
Then curiosity began with _her_ fit;
And lo! the features of the Small Unknown!
'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit!
And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies,
We found a contract signed with Mephistopheles!

A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave
His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion,
Providing in this world he was to have
A lordship over luck, by whose exertion
He might control the course of cards and brave
All throws of dice,--but on a sea excursion
The juggling demon, in his usual vein,
Seized the last cast--and _Nicked_ him in the _main_!

LINES TO A LADY.[29]

[Footnote 29: A parody of John Hamilton Reynolds's once popular
lines, beginning--

"Go, where the water glideth gently ever,"]

ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA.

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly,
And tempest make a soda-water sea,
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly,
And think of me!

Go where the mild Madeira ripens _her_ juice,--
A wine more praised than it deserves to be!
Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice,
And think of me!

Go where the tiger in t