Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/215



I know him well; the master he Of a small bark—an Irish coaster; His heart is like the ocean, free, And like the breeze his tongue's a boaster.

He is a father, too, I'm told, Of children ten, and some say twenty; But it's no matter, he's grown old, And, ten or more, he has got plenty!

List! now he sings a burly stave Of waves and winds, and shipwrecks many, Of flying fish and dolphins brave, Of mermaids lovely but uncanny.

Right oft, I ween, he joys to speak Of slim maids in the green waves dancing, Or singing in some lonesome creek, While kembing locks like sunbeams glancing.

Oh, he hath tales of wondrous things Spied in the vast and gousty ocean; Of monstrous fish whose giant springs Give to the seas their rocking motion;