Sing for the Garish Eye

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.

"You'd best be getting home," he said;
"The nights are very damp!"

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:

He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.

"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo

That worked a coffee-mill:

He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.

"Were I to swallow this," he said,

"I should be very ill!"

875

Lewis Carroll.

SING FOR THE GARISH EYE

SING for the garish eye,

When moonless brandlings cling!

Let the froddering crooner cry,

And the braddled sapster sing.

For never, and never again,

Will the tottering beechlings play,

For bratticed wrackers are singing aloud,
And the throngers croon in May!

The wracking globe unstrung,
Unstrung in the frittering light
Of a moon that knows no day,

Of a day that knows no night!
Diving away in the crowd

Of sparkling frets in spray,

The bratticed wrackers are singing aloud,
And the throngers croon in May!

Hasten, O hapful blue,

Blue, of the shimmering brow, Hasten the deed to do

That shall roddle the welkin now! For never again shall a cloud

Out-thribble the babbling day,

When bratticed wrackers are singing aloud,

And the throngers croon in May!

W. S. Gilbert.

THE SHIPWRECK

UPON the poop the captain stands,
As starboard as may be;

And pipes on deck the topsail hands
To reef the topsail-gallant strands
Across the briny sea.

"Ho! splice the anchor under-weigh!"
The captain loudly cried;

"Ho! lubbers brave, belay! belay!

For we must luff for Falmouth Bay
Before to-morrow's tide."

The good ship was a racing yawl,
A spare-rigged schooner sloop,
Athwart the bows the taffrails all
In grummets gay appeared to fall,
To deck the mainsail poop.

But ere they made the Foreland Light,
And Deal was left behind,

The wind it blew great gales that night,
And blew the doughty captain tight,

Full three sheets in the wind.

And right across the tiller head
The horse it ran apace,
Whereon a traveller hitched and sped
Along the jib and vanished

To heave the trysail brace.

Uffia

What ship could live in such a sea?
What vessel bear the shock?
"Ho! starboard port your helm-a-lee!
Ho! reef the maintop-gallant-tree,
With many a running block!"

And right upon the Scilly Isles
The ship had run aground;
When lo! the stalwart Captain Giles
Mounts up upon the gaff and smiles,
And slews the compass round.

"Saved! saved!" with joy the sailors cry,

And scandalize the skiff;

As taut and hoisted high and dry
They see the ship unstoppered lie
Upon the sea-girt cliff.

And since that day in Falmouth Bay,
As herring-fishers trawl,

The younkers hear the boatswains say
How Captain Giles that awful day
Preserved the sinking yawl.

877

E. H. Palmer.

UFFIA

WHEN sporgles spanned the floreate mead
And cogwogs gleet upon the lea,

Uffia gopped to meet her love

Who smeeged upon the equat sea.

Dately she walked aglost the sand;

The boreal wind seet in her face;
The moggling waves yalped at her feet;
Pangwangling was her pace.

Harriet R. White.

'TIS SWEET TO ROAM

'Tis sweet to roam when morning's light
Resounds across the deep;

And the crystal song of the woodbine bright
Hushes the rocks to sleep,

And the blood-red moon in the blaze of noon
Is bathed in a crumbling dew,

And the wolf rings out with a glittering shout,
To-whit, to-whit, to-whoo!

The Ocean Wanderer

879

KING ARTHUR

WHEN good King Arthur ruled the land,
He was a goodly king:

He stole three pecks of barley meal,
To make a bag-pudding.

A bag-pudding the king did make,
And stuffed it well with plums;
And in it put great lumps of fat,
As big as my two thumbs.

The king and queen did eat thereof,
And noblemen beside;

And what they could not eat that night,
The queen next morning fried.

HYDER IDDLE

HYDER iddle diddle dell,

A yard of pudding is not an ell;
Not forgetting tweedle-dye,

A tailor's goose will never fly.

Unknown.

Unknown.

THE OCEAN WANDERER

BRIGHT breaks the warrior o'er the ocean wave
Through realms that rove not, clouds that cannot save,
Sinks in the sunshine; dazzles o'er the tomb

And mocks the mutiny of Memory's gloom.

Oh! who can feel the crimson ecstasy

That soothes with bickering jar the Glorious Tree?
O'er the high rock the foam of gladness throws,

While star-beams lull Vesuvius to repose:
Girds the white spray, and in the blue lagoon,
Weeps like a walrus o'er the waning moon?