With a rushing, like falling sand,

Of the coils of her screw propeller,

Like the rifles that twist out her shell, or

The leverage fold and grapple

Of the sinewy boa-constrictor,

While her stem peeled the scum as an apple,

And the plunge of her steam beat the drums of a victor.

But, like omens in viscera,

Old Romans sought for;

As the stars fought with Sisera, —

Faster and faster,

And over and past her,

Swirled the cone of the cyclone and fought her.

It touched the sails of the schooner,

The turn of a sandglass sooner;

And, breaking in sudden bloom,
From her foretop studding-sail,
Aft to her spanker-boom,
Down to her channel rail,
Fore to her flying jibs;
Like a lily when it buds
She flowers out of her ribs,
White as the salt-sea seeds;
Bobbing about, like a cup.

Then a shout, and the hunt is up.

*

A lee shore and a squall! There's but one of them all," As he steamed within hail, Said the gunboat commander,

As swivels of hail

Beat tattoo on the sail,
And he looked on the sea,
Where tempests unchain
Reefs hid in white rain;

"You 'll want boots to follow me
All night," said the master,
"With your wrought-iron roster,
Old Geordie of Maine."

Ship ahoy! Heave to!

The wind seemed to wrestle
With steam in the vessel,

Elastic and pliant,

And wrench the propeller
With the strength of a giant,

As if to compel her

To shrink from the danger,
Her keel timbers ran on:

But grimly defiant,

And louder and louder,
In the bursting of powder,
Spoke the lips of her cannon.

"And he's got a king's ransom of stores in his keel; I'll sink her, or land her

Rawbones on a lee shore,

To feed the Sound fishes on his powder and steel."

A reef rose between,

Where the keel of the sea seemed to jib and careen, And pitch on its beam ends,

About which the water ran smooth with vehemence, Like the gates of a lock when its hinges are swung, And the bore of the current shoots out in a tongue. But, taut and close-lasted,

From keelson to masthead;

Spanker vangs to spritsail-yards,

And flying jib-boom,

As true to her halyards

As belle of the room

When her feet, to the click of the castanets clipping, Make rhymes to the music's adagios tripping,

As dangerously quick as Herodias' daughter,-
While the wind kissed her lacings and whipped round
her quarter,

And pitch-piped its bagpipes as shrill as a demon,
The sloop felt her tiller;

Double banked her propeller;

And rushed at the sluice with a full head of steam on.

The nips of the channel,

In shoulder and knee,

Seemed to rise and bend over her;

The bellowing sea,

To open and cover her;
And where the surf plunges

Through coral and sponges

In slings of the wind as light as a feather,
To rove the blue phosphorous frost in her shrouds,
The burst of the clouds,

Mixed the sea and the sand and the sky altogether,
And the welkin cracked open with terrible brightening,
Till the bed of the sea seemed to bristle with light-
ning ;

And over, and under

The clamor of waves, pealed the toll of the thunder.

So, all through the night, in the darkness they grope.
In the wash of the water, and swish of the spray,
Clung the sloop to the chase, as if towed by a rope,
Till the morning gun slipped it, at breaking of day.
Tira la, sang the bugles, a fox stole away!
away; stole

Stole

away: stole away; stole away: Tira la sang the bugles, a fox stole away.

In Wilmington town there's a ringing of bells
As the people go down, to see her come in,
With her flag at the forepeak, as every one tells
Of the old ballad luck of the ship Heir of Lynn.

If you ever meet Josey, or Geordie of Maine,
You will run the chase over in soundings again.
Will Wallace Harney.

UP

Winchester, Va.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

from the South at break of day,

Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down;

And there, through the flush of the morning light,

A steed as black as the steeds of night,

Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible need;
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.