Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box,
’Twas handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass,
And dreamt three times she garnish’d it with stocks,
Of needles, silks, and cottons—but alas!
She lost it wide awake.—We thought Miss Cox
Was lucky—but she saw three caddies pass
To that small imp:—no living luck could loo him!
Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him!
[Pg 39]
And so he climb’d—and rode, and won—and walk’d,
The wondrous topic of the curious swarm
That haunted the Parade. Many were balk’d
Of notoriety by that small form
Pacing it up and down:—some even talk’d
Of ducking him—when lo! a dismal storm
Stepp’d in—one Friday, at the close of day—
And every head was turn’d another way—
Watching the grander guest. It seem’d to rise
Bulky and slow upon the southern brink
Of the horizon—fann’d by sultry sighs—
So black and threatening, I cannot think
Of any simile, except the skies
Miss Wiggins sometime shades in Indian ink—
Miss-shapen blotches of such heavy vapour,
They seem a deal more solid than her paper.
As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave,
And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on
The stony-hearted beach;—some bards would have
It always rampant, in that idle fashion,—
Whereas the waves roll’d in, subdued and grave,
Like schoolboys, when the master’s in a passion,
Who meekly settle in and take their places,
With a very quiet awe on all their faces.
Some love to draw the ocean with a head,
Like troubled table-beer,—and make it bounce,
And froth and roar, and fling—but this, I’ve said,
Surged in scarce rougher than a lady’s flounce:—
But then, a grander contrast thus it bred
With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce
Something more awful in the serious ear,
As one would whisper that a lion’s near—
[Pg 40]
Who just begins to roar; so the hoarse thunder
Growl’d long—but low—a prelude note of death,
As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under,
But still it mutter’d to the sea beneath
Such a continued peal, as made us wonder
It did not pause more oft to take its breath,
Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather,
And hardly cared to wed two words together,
But watch’d the surly advent of the storm,
Much as the brown-cheek’d planters of Barbadoes
Must watch a rising of the Negro swarm:—
Meantime it steer’d, like Odin’s old Armadas,
Right on our coast;—a dismal, coal-black form;—
Many proud gaits were quell’d—and all bravadoes
Of folly ceased—and sundry idle jokers
Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers.
So fierce the lightning flashed. In all their days
The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing,
And they are used to many a pretty blaze,
To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing
With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays:—
And truly one could think without much lashing
The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful
And black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful.
The gay Parade grew thin—all the fair crowd
Vanish’d—as if they knew their own attractions,—
For now the lightning through a near hand cloud
Began to make some very crooked fractions—
Only some few remain’d that were not cow’d,
A few rough sailors, who had been in actions,
And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo’s,
Lest it should blow,—were pulling up the Rose:
[Pg 41]
(No flower, but a boat)—some more hauling
The Regent by the head:—another crew
With that same cry peculiar to their calling—
Were heaving up the Hope:&m............