A YARN.

IS Saturday night, and our watch below.

What heed we, boys, how the breezes blow,

While our cans are brimmed with the sparkling flow?

Come, Jack, uncoil, as we pass the grog,

And spin us a yarn from memory's log."

Jack's brawny chest like the broad sea heaved,
While his loving lip to the beaker cleaved;
And he drew his tarred and well-saved sleeve
Across his mouth, as he drained the can,
And thus to his listening mates began:-

"When I sailed, a boy, in the schooner Mike,
No bigger, I trow, than a marlinespike—
But I've told ye the tale ere now, belike?"
"Go on!" each voice re-echoed,

And the tar thrice hemmed, and thus he said:

"A stanch-built craft as the waves e'er bore-
We had loosed our sail for home once more,
Freighted full deep from Labrador,
When a cloud one night rose on our lee,

That the heart of the stoutest quailed to see.

OR

"Our bark may never outride the gale.
'Tis a pitiless night! The pattering hail
Hath coated each spar as 't were in mail;
And our sails are riven before the breeze,
While our cordage and shrouds into icicles freeze!'

"Thus spake the skipper beside the mast,
While the arrowy sleet fell thick and fast;
And our bark drove onward before the blast
That goaded the waves, till the angry main
Rose up and strove with the hurricane.

"Up spake the mate, and his tone was gay,-
'Shall we at this hour to fear give way?
We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray.
Out, shipmates, and grapple home yonder sail,
That flutters in ribbons before the gale!'

"Loud swelled the tempest, and rose the shriek,
'Save, save! we are sinking! A leak! a leak!'
And the hale old skipper's tawny cheek

Was cold, as 't were sculptured in marble there,
And white as the foam or his own white hair.

"The wind piped shrilly, the wind piped loud,

It shrieked 'mong the cordage, it howled in the shroud,
And the sleet fell thick from the cold, dun cloud;

But high over all, in tones of glee,

The voice of the mate rang cheerily,

"Now, men, for your wives' and your sweethearts' sakes! Cheer, messmates, cheer! Quick! man the brakes! We'll gain on the leak ere the skipper wakes;

And though our peril your hearts appall,

Ere dawns the morrow we'll laugh at the squall.'

"He railed at the tempest, he laughed at its threats,

He played with his fingers like castanets;
Yet think not that he, in his mirth, forgets
That the plank he is riding this hour at sea
May launch him the next to eternity!

"The white-haired skipper turned away,

And lifted his hands, as it were to pray;
But his look spoke plainly as look could say,
The boastful thought of the Pharisee,

--

'Thank God, I'm not hardened as others be!'

"But the morning dawned, and the waves sank low,

And the winds, o'erwearied, forebore to blow;

And our bark lay there in the golden glow,

Flashing she lay in the bright sunshine,
An ice-sheathed hulk on the cold, still brine.