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They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'....

Here is the way I shall die:
It's dark. And it has rained.
But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds
Which up there cover the sky in soft silk.
All streets are flowing, black mirrors,...

The Text is from a Cottonian MS. of the sixteenth century in the British Museum (Vesp. A. xxv. fol. 178). It is carelessly written, and words are here and there deleted and altered. I have allowed myself the liberty of choosing...

A yeoman born, with patrimony small,
He held the world at large as his estate;
Found fit advices in the bugle's call
And took his part in iron-tongued debate
Where'er one sword another sword blade notched;...

Out of the East a hurricane
Swept down on Captain Lean -
That mariner and gentleman
Will ne'er again be seen.

He sailed his ship against the foes
Of his own country dear,...

Oh, you young radicals and dreamers,
You dauntless fledglings
Who pass by my headstone,
Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army
And my faith in God!
They are not denials of each other....

Of all the ships upon the blue,
No ship contained a better crew
Than that of worthy Captain Reece.
Commanding of The Mantelpiece.

He was adored by all his men,
For worthy Captain Reece, R.N.,...

Here I am, at headquarters, dear Terry, once more,
Deep in Tory designs, as I've oft been before:
For, bless them! if 'twasn't for this wrong-headed crew,
You and I, Terry Alt, would scarce know what to do;...

Three years ago my vessel lay
In a port of Hudson Bay,
I started off for the trading post,
But on the way back I then got lost.

And the thought soon gave me the blues,...

Oh some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white,
And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight;
But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's delight
Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
...

Of his beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadn't the slightest hint,
But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint,
With a heart somewhere if it wasn't there, and an Irish terrier nose,...

The Text is from a broadside in the Bagford collection (i. 65); other broadsides, very similar, are to be found in the Pepys, Roxburghe, and other collections. The ballad has often been reprinted; and more than one oral version...

The Text is from Kinloch's MSS., where it was written down from the recitation of Mary Barr: it is entitled 'The Earl of Rosslyn's Daughter.'

...

Caged in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake
When the hern screams along the distant lake,
Her little heart oft flutters to be free,
Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key....

"As the cold aspect of a sunless way
Strikes through the Traveller's frame with deadlier chill,
Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill,
Glistening with unparticipated ray,...

IN COMITATU CORGAGENSI. SCRIPSIT JUN. ANN. DOM. 1723


Ecce ingens fragmen scopuli, quod vertice summo
Desuper impendet, nullo fundamine nixum,
Decidit in fluctus: maria undique et undique saxa...

TRANSLATED BY DR. DUNKIN

Lo! from the top of yonder cliff, that shrouds
Its airy head amid the azure clouds,
Hangs a huge fragment; destitute of props,
Prone on the wave the rocky ruin drops;...

Here's one in whom Nature feared - faint at such vying -
Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.

Care keeps the conquest; 'tis no less renown
To keep a city than to win a town.

Father is quite the greatest poet
That ever lived anywhere.
You say you're going to write great music,
I chose that first: it's unfair.
Besides, now I can't be the greatest painter and...