shipman walked the deck, a peaceful master-mariner once

more.

"There is sad scath done to the cog, Sir Nigel," said he. "Here is a hole in the side two ells across, the sail split through the centre, and the wood as bare as a friar's poll. In good sooth, I know not what I shall say to Master Witherton when I see the Itchen once more."

"By St. Paul! it would be a very sorry thing if we suffered you to be the worse of this day's work," said Sir Nigel. "You shall take these galleys back with you, and Master Witherton may sell them. Then, from the moneys he shall take as much as may make good the damage, and the rest he shall keep until our home-coming, when every man shall have his share. An image of silver fifteen inches high I have vowed to the Virgin, to be placed in her chapel within the priory, for that she was pleased to allow me to come upon this Spadebeard, who seemed to me, from what I have seen of him, to be a very sprightly and valiant gentleman. But how fares it with you, Edricson?"

"It is nothing, my fair lord," said Alleyne, who had now loosened his bassinet, which was cracked across by the Norman's blow. Even as he spoke, however, his head swirled round, and he fell to the deck with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth.

"He will come to anon," said the knight, stooping over him and passing his fingers through his hair. "I have lost one very valiant and gentle squire this day. I can ill afford to lose another. How many men have fallen ?"

"I have pricked off the tally," said Aylward, who had come aboard with his lord. "There are seven of the Winchester men, eleven seamen, your squire, young Master Terlake, and nine archers."

"And of the others?"

"They are all dead, save only the Norman knight who stands behind you. What would you that we should do with him?" "He must hang on his own yard," said Sir Nigel. "It was my vow, and must be done."

The pirate leader had stood by the bulwarks, a cord round his arms, and two stout archers on either side. At Sir Nigel's words he started violently, and his swarthy features blanched to a livid gray.

"How, Sir Knight?" he cried, in broken English. "Que dites-vous? To hang, la mort du chien! To hang!"

"It is my vow," said Sir Nigel, shortly. "From what I hear, you thought little enough of hanging others."

"Peasants, base roturiers!" cried the other. "It is their fitting death! Mais Le Seigneur d'Andelys, avec le sang des rois dans ses veines! C'est incroyable!"

Sir Nigel turned upon his heel, while two seamen cast a noose over the pirate's neck. At the touch of the cord he snapped the bonds which bound him, dashed one of the archers to the deck, and seizing the other round the waist, sprung with him into the sea.

"By my hilt, he is gone!" cried Aylward, rushing to the side. "They have sunk together like a stone!"

"I am right glad of it," answered Sir Nigel; "for though it was against my vow to loose him, I deem that he has carried himself like a very gentle and débonnaire cavalier."

THE BOWMEN'S SONG.

(From "The White Company.")

WHAT of the bow ?

The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;

So men who are free

Love the old yew-tree

And the land where the yew-tree grows.

What of the men?

The men were bred in England,

The bowmen, the yeomen,

The lads of the dale and fell.

Here's to you and to you,

To the hearts that are true,

And the land where the true hearts dwell.

3798

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

DRAKE, JOSEPH RODMAN, an American poet; born at New York, August 7, 1795; died there September 21, 1820. He studied medicine at Columbia College, New York. He early formed an intimate personal and literary friendship with Fitz-Greene Halleck and James Fenimore Cooper. In 1818 he travelled in Europe; and upon his return in the following year he began, in conjunction with Halleck, the writing of the poetical "Croaker" papers, which appeared in the newspapers. He died of consumption at the age of twenty-five. His longest poem, "The Culprit Fay" (1819) was written - it is said in three days before he had reached the age of twenty-one; and his stirring lines on "The American Flag," written also in 1819, was one of the "Croaker" papers.

My morning lounge is Eastburn's shop,
At Poppleton's I take my lunch;
Niblo prepares my mutton-chop,

And Jennings makes my whiskey-punch.

When merry, I the hours amuse

By squibbing Bucktails, Bucks, and Balls; And when I'm troubled with the blues, Damn Clinton and abuse canals, — Then, Fortune, since I ask no prize, At least preserve me from thy frown; The man who don't attempt to rise 'T were cruelty to tumble down.

A WINTER'S TALE.

(From "The Croakers.")

"A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one tires in a mile-a."

THE man who frets at worldly strife
Grows sallow, sour, and thin;
Give us the lad whose happy life
Is one perpetual grin:

He, Midas-like, turns all to gold;
He smiles when others sigh;
Enjoys alike the hot and cold,

And laughs through wet and dry.

There's fun in everything we meet;
The greatest, worst, and best
Existence is a merry treat,

And every speech a jest:

Be 't ours to watch the crowds that pass
Where mirth's gay banner waves;
To show fools through a quizzing glass,
And bastinade the knaves.

The serious world will scold and ban,
In clamor loud and hard,

To hear Meigs called a Congressman,
And Paulding called a bard:

But come what may, the man's in luck
Who turns it all to glee,

And laughing, cries with honest Puck,
"Good Lord! what fools ye be!"

THE CULPRIT FAY.

My visual orbs are purged from film, and lo!
Instead of Anster's turnip-bearing vales,
I see old Fairyland's miraculous show!

Her trees of tinsel kissed by freakish gales,
Her ouphs that, cloaked in leaf-gold, skim the breeze,
And fairies, swarming.
TENNANT'S "ANster Fair."

'Tis the middle watch of a summer's nightThe earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Naught is seen in the vault on high

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky, And the flood which rolls its milky hue,

A river of light on the welkin blue.

The moon looks down on old Cronest;

She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,

And seems his huge gray form to throw

In a silver cone on the wave below;
His sides are broken by spots of shade,

By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark-
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam
In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still;
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
And naught is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katydid;

And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill,
Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings,
Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.

"Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
He has counted them all with click and stroke

Deep in the heart of the mountain oak,