n all!" he sang out, "as you care for your lives,--
Starn all! as you hope to return to your wives,--
Stand by for the flurry! she throws up the foam!
Well done, my old iron; I've sent you right home!"

And scarce had he spoken, when lo! bolt upright
The leviathan rose in a great sheet of white,
And swiftly advanced for a fathom or two,
As only a fish out of water could do.

"Starn all!" echoed Ben, with a movement aback,
But too slow to escape from the creature's attack;
If flippers it had, they were furnished with nails,--
"You willin, I'll teach you that women ain't whales!"

"Avast!" shouted Ben, with a sort of a screech,
"I've heard a whale spouting, but here is a speech!"
"A-spouting, indeed!--very pretty," said she;
"But it's you I'll blow up, not the froth of the sea!

"To go to pretend to take _me_ for a fish!
You great polar bear--but I know what you wish;
You're sick of a wife that your hankering balks,
You want to go back to some young Esquimaux!"

"O dearest," cried Ben, frightened out of his life,
"Don't think I would go for to murder a wife
I must long have bewailed!" But she only cried, "Stuff!"
Don't name it, you brute, you've _be-whaled_ me enough!"

"Lord, Polly!" said Ben, "such a deed could I do?
I'd rather have murdered all Wapping than you!
Come, forgive what is past." "O you monster!" she cried,
"It was none of your fault that it passed off one side!"

However, at last she inclined to forgive;
"But, Ben, take this warning as long as you live,--
If the love of harpooning so strong must prevail,
Take a whale for a wife,--not a wife for a whale!"

_Thomas Hood._

THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS

A brace of sinners, for no good,
Were order'd to the Virgin Mary's shrine,
Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood,
And in a fair white wig look'd wondrous fine.

Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel,
With something in their shoes much worse than gravel;
In short, their toes so gentle to amuse,
The priest had order'd peas into their shoes:

A nostrum, famous in old popish times,
For purifying souls that stunk with crimes;
A sort of apostolic salt,
Which popish parsons for its powers exalt,
For keeping souls of sinners sweet,
Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat.

The knaves set off on the same day,
Peas in their shoes, to go and pray:
But very different was their speed, I wot:
One of the sinners gallop'd on,
Swift as