He was deafened amidst the mountain tops,
  And the salt spray blinded his eyes,
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!

A FAIRY TALE.

On Hounslow Heath—­and close beside the road,
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.