Selected Poetry.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1761, 25 June 1886, Page 5

Selected Poetry.

LOOKING BACK. We twain, for fifty wedded years, Have shared each other's hope 9 and fears, And while the tide of life ebbs fast We cherish memories of the past — Oft looking buck with rapturous joy To days when we were girl and boy. How distant seems that morn in HayThat sunny morn when in our play We sat together side by side : You, crowned with flowers — a mimic bride ! — Affection was no fragile toy When we were only girl and boy ! True love is like the opening ro?e, That gains in fragrance as it grows. Making tho soul wherein 'tis found An ever pleasant garden- ground. Lovo*b perfume ne'er had power to cloy Since you and I were girl and boy ! The blooms that graced the Spring are dead, Summer and Autumn, too, are fled, And Winter snows lie thickly now O'er Age's deeply -furrowed brow. Though Time may Beauty's charm destroy, In fancy we are girl and boy. The journey's end is nigh, but still In unison our bosoms thrill ; The fires of friendship, burning bright, Illume our path with heavenly light — Our constancy knows no alloy, At heait we yet are girl and boy. THE LITTLE FIGHT OFF POOLE. 'Twas in the May of seventy-five, twohundred years ago, There happed a little sea-fight off Poole, in Dorsetshire ; Where a fisherman, Will Thompson, with a man and boy — no mo' — In his smack lay to a fishing, while a mack'rel huge did blow ; And while he fished was fired on by a French sloop-privateer — By a French sloop-privnteer, Off the coast of Dorsetshire, In the merry month of May long ago. The Frenchman was well armed with two guns, his sixteen hands Were all supplied with muskets, which they knew right well to use ; The fisher, with two swivels and three musketp, yet withstands Those Frenchmen with a courage never seen in other lands ; 'Twas a free fight, 'twas a fair fight— Thompson knew not any ruse, Yet he beat that Privateer High the coast of Dorsetshire — That Frenchman in his sloop with sixteen hands. For two hours the combat lasted in that May of long ago, Then she struck her flag to Thompson, and two hands — just two ! And they brought hor into Poole, and right proud they were, I trow, > While to honour Thompson's courage th Admiralty not slow, For they gave him fifty pounds and a watch and medal too. For he took that Privateer On the coast of Dorsetshire, In the merry month of May long ago.