Metrical tales, and other poems; - Electric Scotland

82 YAKNS or THE PENTLAND PIBTH.
Though he oft forgets the Power that saves
When the storm hath ceased to blow ;
Though he hid rehgion pass to-day,
And call agam to-morrow ;
Though he's oft a thoughtless, dissolute dog.
He's seldom an Atheist thorough.
Your blinded advocate of chance,
Whom the
churchmen cannot reform.
Who laughs at faith, and sneers at hope
Put him out to sea in a storm.
Put him far at sea in an open boat.
And alone, like my Uncle Dan,
And I'll lay you my yawl to a schooner's punt
You would find him an altered man.
My uncle thought on his friends at home,
The wife ho might ne'er see more.
And wrung his hands, and wept and prayed.
As he never had prayed on shore.
'Twere long to tell how he lay becalmed
On the broad Atlantic's breast,
Or number the risks of his tiny bark
When a breeze sprang up in the west.
'Twere sad to hear of his raging thirst,
With nothing to quench its fire.
Or the hunger that gnawed his vitals up
With the fangs of fierce desire.
Enough to say that a second day
And a third dread night had run.
Ere a coaster picked my uncle up
At the rising of the sun.