A Sea-side Sketch.

Lov’st thou not, Alice, with the early tide

To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,

And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide —

Like God’s own beadsman going forth to cast

His net into the deep, which doth provide

Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast

Bosom like Charity’s, for all who seek

And take its gracious boon thankful and meek?

The sea is bright with morning — but the dark

Seems still to linger on his broad black sail,

For it is early hoisted, like a mark

For the low sun to shoot at with his pale

And level beams: All round the shadowy bark

The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale

Swells in her canvas, till the waters show

The keel’s new speed, and whiten at the bow.

Then look abaft —(for thou canst understand

That phrase)— and there he sitteth at the stern,

Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand,

The hardy Fisherman. Thou may’st discern

Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann’d

And honest countenance that he will turn

To look upon us, with a quiet gaze —

As we are passing on our several ways.

So, some ten days ago, on such a morn,

The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil

Amongst the finny race: ’twas when the corn

Woo’d the sharp sickle, and the golden toil

Summon’d all rustic hands to fill the horn

Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil

Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap

His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep.

His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard,

His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams

Of morning, for the wind. Ben’s eye was stored

With fishes — fishes swam in all his dreams,

And all the goodly east seem’d but a hoard

Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams

Groped into the deep dusk that fill’d the sky,

For him to catch in meshes of his eye.

For Ben had the true sailor’s sanguine heart,

And saw the future with a boy’s brave thought,

No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part

In his bright visions — ay, before he caught

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