Whate'er their age, sex, or condition may be, They all of them long for the "Wide, Wide Sea!" But, however they dote, Only set them afloat In any craft bigger at all than a boat, Take them down to the Nore, And you'll see that, before The "Wessel" they "Woyage" in has made half her way Between Shell-Ness Point and the pier at Herne Bay, Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree, They'll be all of them heartily sick of "the Sea!" * * * * * * I've stood in Margate, on a bridge of size Inferior far to that described by Byron, Where "palaces and pris'ns on each hand rise--" --That too's a stone one, this is made of iron-- And little donkey-boys your steps environ, Each proffering for your choice his tiny hack, Vaunting its excellence; and, should you hire one, For sixpence, will he urge, with frequent thwack, The much-enduring beast to Buenos Ayres--and back. And there, on many a raw and gusty day, I've stood, and turn'd my gaze upon the pier, And seen the crews, that did embark so gay That self-same morn, now disembark so queer; Then to myself I've sigh'd and said, "Oh dear! Who would believe yon sickly-looking man's a London Jack Tar--a Cheapside Buccaneer!--" But hold, my Muse!--for this terrific stanza Is all too stiffly grand for our Extravaganza. * * * * * "So now we'll go up, up, up, And now we'll go down, down, down, And now we'll go backward and forward, And now we'll go roun', roun', roun'."-- --I hope you've sufficient discernment to see, Gentle Reader, that here the discarding the D Is a fault which you must not attribute to me; Thus my Nurse cut it off when, "with counterfeit glee," She sung, as she danced me about on her knee, In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and three: All I mean to say is, that the Muse is now free From the self-imposed trammels put on by her betters, And no longer like Filch, midst the felons and debtors, At Drury Lane, dances her hornpipe in fetters. Resuming her track, At once she goes back To our hero, the Bagman--Alas! and Alack! Poor Anthony Blogg Is as sick as a dog, Spite of sundry unwonted potations of grog, By the time the Dutch packet is fairly at sea, With the sands called the Goodwins a league on her lee.