And washed away the other salt drops

That grief had caused to arise :

:

But just as his body was all afloat,

And the surges above him broke,

He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat Of Deal (but builded of oak).

The skipper gave him a dram, as he lay,
And chafed his shivering skin;

And the Angel returned that was flying away
With the spirit of Peter Fin.

As western travellers may oft have seen,A little house some years ago there stood, A minikin abode ;

And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood:

The walls of white, the window-shutters green,

Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West (Though now at rest),

On which it used to wander to and fro,

Because its master ne'er maintained a rider,

Like those who trade in Paternoster Row;

But made his business travel for itself,

Till he had made his pelf,

And then retired-if one may call it so,
Of a roadsider.

Perchance, the very race and constant riot
Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran,
Made him more relish the repose and quiet

Of his now sedentary caravan ;

Perchance, he loved the ground because 'twas common, And so he might impale a strip of soil

That furnished, by his toil,

Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman ;-
And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower:
Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil
His peace, unless, in some unlucky hour,

A stray horse came, and gobbled up his bow'r.

But tired of always looking at the coaches,

The same to come, when they had seen them one day!

And, used to brisker life, both man and wife

Began to suffer N U E's approaches,

And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday,

So, having had some quarters of school breeding,

They turned themselves, like other folks, to reading;

But setting out where others nigh have done,

And being ripened in the seventh stage,
The childhood of old age,

Began, as other children have begun,

Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,
Or Bard of Hope,

Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,

But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,
And then relax'd themselves with Whittington,
Or Valentine and Orson-

But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,

And being easily melted in their dotage,

Slobber'd, and kept

Reading, and wept

Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage,

Thus reading on-the longer

They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim,If talking Trees and Birds revealed to him,

She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly-waggons,

And magic fishes swim

In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons,-

Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons; When as it fell upon a summer's day,

As the old man sat a feeding

On the old-babe reading,

Beside his open street-and-parlour door,

A hideous roar

Proclaimed a drove of beasts was coming by the way.