THE VETERAN TAR.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR.*

com-pelled [L. com, intensive; pello, to drive], forced, obliged. reclined [L. re, back; clino, to lean, from Gk. klino, to bend], leant back, resting in a recumbent posture. vol-un-teer [L. voluntas, will, from volo, to desire, to will], one who undertakes any duty of his own free will.

A MARINER, whom fate compelled

To make his home ashore,

Lived in yon cottage on the mount,
With ivy mantled o'er;

Because he could not breathe beyond
The sound of ocean's roar.

He placed yon vane upon the roof
To mark how stood the wind:
For breathless days and breezy days
Brought back old times to mind,
When rocked amid the shrouds, or on
The sunny deck reclined.

And in his spot of garden-ground
All ocean plants were met-
Salt lavender, that lacks perfume,
With scented mignonette;
And, blending with the roses' bloom,
Sea-thistles freaked with jet.

Models of cannoned ships of war,
Rigged out in gallant style;
Pictures of Camperdown's red fight,
And Nelson at the Nile,

Were round his cabin hung, his hours,
When lonely, to beguile.

* DAVID MACBETH MOIR was born at Musselburgh, a town near Edinburgh, in 1798, and died in 1851. He was a rgeon by profession, and practised in his native town. He contributed largely to Blackwood's Magazine under the signature of the Greek letter Delta. His poems are remarkable for their tenderness and pathos, but are somewhat deficient in originality and force of expression. The best of his prose writings is a humorous tale, entitled the "Autobiography of Mansie Wauch;" while the above and "Casa Wappy," a beautiful poem on the death of his infant son, may be considered the best specimens of his style as a poet.

And there were charts and soundings made
By Anson, Cook, and Bligh;
Fractures of coral from the deep,

And stormstones from the sky;
Shells from the shores of gay Brazil;
Stuffed birds, and fishes dry.

Old Simon had an orphan been,
No relative had he;

Even from his childhood was he scen
A haunter of the quay;
So, at the age of raw thirteen,
He took him to the sea.

Four years on board a merchantman
He sailed-a growing lad;
And all the isles of Western Ind,
In endless summer clad,

He knew, from pastoral St. Lucic,
To palmy Trinidad.

But sterner life was in his thoughts,
When, 'mid the sea-fight's jar,
Stooped victory from the battered shrouds,
To crown the British tar;

"Twas then he went-a volunteer

On board a ship of war.

Through forty years of storm and shine,
He ploughed the changeful deep;
From where beneath the tropic line
The winged fishes leap,

To where frost rocks the Polar seas
To everlasting sleep.

I recollect the brave old man,—
Methinks upon my view

He comes again-his varnished hat,
Striped shirt, and jacket blue;

His bronzed and weather-beaten cheek,
Keen eye, and plaited queue.

Yon turfen bench the veteran loved,
Beneath the threshold tree,
For from that spot he could survey
The broad expanse of sea,-
That element, where he so long
Had been a rover free!

And lighted up his faded face,
When drifting in the gale,
He with his telescope could catch,
Far off, a coming sail :

It was a music to his ear,

To list the sea-mews' wail!

Oft would he tell how, under Smith,
Upon the Egyptian strand,
Eager to beat the boastful French,
They joined the men on land,
And plied their deadly shots, intrenched
Behind their bags of sand;-

And when he told how, through the Sound,
With Nelson in his might,

They passed the Cronberg betteries,

To quell the Dane in fight,-
His voice with vigour filled again!

His veteran eye with light!

But chiefly of hot Trafalgar

The brave old man would speak;

And, when he showed his oaken stump,

A glow suffused his cheek,

While his eye filled-for, wound on wound

Had left him worn and weak.

Ten years, in vigorous old age,
Within that cot he dwelt;
Tranquil as falls the snow on snow,
Life's lot to him was dealt;
But came infirmity at length,
And slowly o'er him stealt.

We missed him on our seaward walk:
The children went no more
To listen to his evening talk,
Beside the cottage door ;-
Grim palsy held him to the bed,
Which health eschewed before.

"Twas harvest-time;-day after day
Beheld him weaker grow;
Day after day his labouring pulse
Became more faint and slow;
For, in the chambers of his heart,
Life's fire was burning low.

Thus did he weaken and he wane,
Till frail as frail could be ;
But duly at the hour which brings
Homeward the bird and bee,
He made them prop him in his couch,
To gaze upon the sea.

And now he watched the moving boat,
And now the moveless ships,
And now the western hills remote,
With gold upon their tips,

As ray by ray the mighty sun
Went down in calm eclipse.

Welcome as homestead to the feet
Of pilgrim, travel-tired,
Death to old Simon's dwelling came,
A thing to be desired;

And, breathing peace to all around,
The man of war expired.

EXERCISE.-72. PARSING, ETC.

1. Write out the words containing diphthongs in the first five verses underlining the diphthongs.

2. Name the nouns in the objective in the second five verses, and say what governs them.

3. Parse syntactically the last four verses.

4. Analyse the eighteenth and nineteenth verses.

5. Select the nouns in apposition from the whole poem, and state their

cases.

AN ADVENTURE IN CALABRIA.

re-mu-ne-ra-tion [L. re, back; munus, a gift], payment, reward, recompense for any service. com-pan-ion [F. compagnon, from con, together; panis, bread], an associate, a partner, fellow traveller. tra-ry [L. contra, against], opposite, on the other hand.

con

I WAS once travelling in Calabria, a land of wicked people who, I believe, hate every one, and particularly the French; the reason why would take long to tell you. Suffice it to say that they mortally hate us, and that one gets on very badly when he falls into their hands.

In the mountains of Calabria, which forms the southern extremity of Italy, the roads are precipices, and our horses got on with much difficulty. My companion went first; a path, which appeared to him shorter and more practicable, led us astray. It was my fault. Ought I to have trusted to a head only twenty years old? Whilst daylight lasted, we tried to find our way through the wood; but the more we tried, the more bewildered we became, and it was pitch dark when we arrived at a very black-looking house.

We entered, not without fear, but what could we do? We found a whole family of charcoal-burners at table. They immediately invited us to join them. My companion did not wait to be pressed. There we were, eating and drinking; he at least, for I was examining the place and the appearance of our hosts.

Although our hosts were merely charcoal-burners, you would have taken the house for an arsenal. There was nothing but guns, pistols, swords, knives, and cutlasses. Everything displeased me, and I saw very well that I displeased them. My companion, on the contrary, was quite one of the family; he laughed and talked with them, and, with an imprudence that I ought to have foreseen, he told at once where we came from, where we were going, and that we were Frenchmen. Just imagine! amongst our most mortal enemies, alone, out of our road, so far from all human succour, and then, to omit nothing that might ruin us, he played the rich man, and promised to give the next morning, as a remuneration to these people and to our guides, whatever they wished. Then he spoke of his port