Talk not to me of bees and such like hums,

The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime—
Only lie long enough, and bed becomes
A bed of time.

To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought,

His steeds that paw impatiently about,--
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought,
The first turn-out!

Right beautiful the dewy meads appear
Besprinkled by the rosy-finger'd girl;
What then,--if I prefer my pillow-beer
To early pearl ?

My stomach is not ruled by other men's,
And grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs
"Wherefore should master rise before the hens
Have laid their eggs?."

Why from a comfortable pillow start

To see faint flushes in the east awaken ?

A fig, say I, for any streaky part,

Excepting bacon.

An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,

Who used to haste the dewy grass among,

66

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn".
Well he died young.

With charwomen such early hours agree,

And sweeps, that earn betimes their bit and sup;

But I'm no climbing boy, and need not be

So here I'll lie, my morning calls deferring,

Till something nearer to the stroke of noon; A man that's fond precociously of stirring, Must be a spoon.

N

For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were muster

ing at the brim;

Titanic shades! enormous gloom!- as if the solid

night

Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!

It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye,

With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and

sky!

Down went my helm--close reef'd-the tack held freely in my hand--

With ballast snug-I put about, and scudded for the

land.

Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee-my little boat

flew fast,

But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast.

Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining

sail!

What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults

of hail !

What darksome caverns yawned before! what jagged

steeps behind!

Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind.

Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the

chase,

But where it sank another rose and gallop'd in its

place;

As black as night-they turned to white, and cast against the cloud

A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's

shroud :