A lake and a fairy boat
To sail in the moonlight clear,
And merrily we would float
From the dragons that watch us here!
Thy gown should be snow-white silk,
And strings of orient pearls,
Like gossamers dipp'd in milk,
Should twine with thy raven curls.
Red rubies should deck thy hands,
And diamonds should be thy dower--
But fairies have broke their wands,
And wishing has lost its power!
_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies and other Poems_.
* * * * *
THE ARRIVAL OF A TRANSPORT.
Numbers of boats soon surround the ship, filled with people anxious to
hear news, and traffickers with fruit and other refreshments, besides
watermen to land passengers; a regular establishment of the latter
description has long existed here, many of whose members formerly plied
that vocation on the Thames, and among whom were a few years back numbered
that famous personage once known by all from Westminster stairs to
Greenwich, by the shouts which assailed him as he rowed along, of
"Overboard he vent, overboard he vent!" King Boongarre, too, with a
boat-load of his dingy retainers, may possibly honour you with a visit,
bedizened in his varnished cocked-hat of "formal cut," his gold-laced blue
coat (flanked on the shoulders by a pair of massy epaulettes) buttoned
closely up, to evade the extravagance of including a shirt in the
catalogue of his wardrobe; and his bare and broad platter feet, of dull
cinder hue, spreading out like a pair of sprawling toads, upon the deck
before you.
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