LIFE AT NIAGARA.

Rich East India governors, heavy as gold,

Hanging round like weak sun-flowers, yellow and old;
Artistical talent, with sketch-book displayed,

Drawing very bad water in very poor shade;

Fat cockneys from Charing-Cross; belles from Madrid,
Whose long jewelled fingers outrival Jamschid;
Superb English maidens, with swan-swimming gait,
Who float round the Rapids like Junos in state;

But the brightest-eyed daughters, the best string of pearls,
Represent in their beauty our own Yankee Girls.

Here cluster the fair, and the plain, and the prim,
Round the gallant and gay, whiskered up to the brim ;
Here's a biped in boots, a most exquisite ass,
Who looks at the Falls through a golden-rimmed glass;
And to-day such a waist, N., I saw on the Rock,

That to furnish the brains seemed a slight waste of stock.

Here's a lively old lady, all feathers and fans,

Who trots about peddling her Susans and Anns;

And a drab-colored Quaker, I've seen more than twice

Take a sly glass of something in water and ice.

But brief let me be, while the dull curfew tolls;

Niagara still lives! still it rushes, and rolls ;·

There is no spot on earth where I'd sooner meet you,

And the friends we both love, N., the choice and the true,

Though a Downeastern editor published the lie

That this glorious old cataract's "all in my eye!"

THE ALARMED SKIPPER.

"It was an ancient Mariner.”

MANY a long, long year ago,

Nantucket skippers had a plan

Of finding out, though "lying low,"

How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,

And then, by sounding through the night, Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,

They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper grey, whose eyes were dim,

Could tell, by tasting, just the spot,

And so below he'd "dowse the glim

After, of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,

This ancient skipper might be found; No matter how his craft would rock,

He slept for skippers' naps are sound!

The watch on deck would now and then

Run down and wake him, with the lead;

He'd up, and taste, and tell the men

How many miles they went ahead.

One night, 't was Jotham Marden's watch,

A curious wag,

the pedlar's son,

And so he mused, (the wanton wretch,)

"To-night I'll have a grain of fun.

THE ALARMED SKIPPER.

81

“We're all a set of stupid fools

To think the skipper knows by tasting

What ground he's on,

Nantucket schools

Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!

And so he took the well-greased lead,

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth

That stood on deck (a parsnip bed) -
And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, Sir? Please to taste."
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue,
Then oped his eyes in wondrous haste,
And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,

Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden,

"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are

Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!”