'Twas for your pleasure you came hereYou shall go back for mine." Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast For, while he spake, a braying ass Whereat his horse did snort, as he Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig: Now mistress Gilpin, when she saw She pull'd out half-a-crown; And thus unto the youth she said, "This shall be yours, when you bring back My husband safe and well." The youth did ride, and soon did meet Whom in a trice he tried to stop But not performing what he meant, And made him faster run. Away went Gilpin, and away Went postboy at his heels, The postboy's horse right glad to miss Six gentlemen upon the road Thus seeing Gilpin fly, With postboy scampering in the rear, Thus raised the hue and cry: "Stop thief! stop thief! a highwayman! None one of them was mute ; And all and each that pass'd that way And now the turnpike-gates again And so he did, and won it too, Nor stopp'd till where he had got up Now let us sing, long live the king, And when he next doth ride abroad, THE CAST-AWAY. OBSCUREST night involved the sky; The Atlantic billows roared, No braver chief could Albion boast, Nor ever ship left Albion's coast With warmer wishes sent. He loved them both, but both in vain, Not long beneath the whelming brine, Nor soon he felt his strength decline, But waged with death a lasting strife, He shouted; nor his friends had failed They left their outcast mate behind, Some succour yet they could afford ; The cask, the coop, the floated cord, But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore, Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he Alone could rescue them; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigh. He long survives, who lives an hour And so long he, with unspent power, And ever as the minutes flew, At length, his transient respite past, Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound no more. No poet wept him; but the page That tells his name, his worth, his age, And tears by bards or heroes shed I therefore purpose not, or dream, But misery still delights to trace No voice divine the storm allayed, When snatched from all effectual aid But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he. |