POETRY.
MARTELLO NO. I. (log.)
Tully built me round, and they built me thick, With a skin of stone and a heart of brick, And they circled me with a yawning ditch, And topped my roof with a cannon, which They said would sweep the country round With an iron ball of sixteen pound.
With threescore others the same as I, They dotted the shore from here to Rye, Contented smiled, and hurled the boast, " Let Boney come ! Our bit of coast Will give him a reception hot finch as he nowhere ever got I" (This of Boney, whose thumb had twirled Like a tee-to-tum the trembling world ; Whose nod could move a million men, Who with a stroke of his iron pen Could make a kingdom, or with a frown Topple thrones and their sitters down!) Never came Honey : and 'twas said Of me and my mates he was afraid. So here we are as we've been since then, Standing jokes and despised of men: Some of us, truly, deemed to be Worthy butts for artillery : Some of us come to a homelier fate Let at a half-crown weekly rate. And I hear the wandering tourist say, We're picturesque in a sort of way, And interesting when looked upon As links with a past now long bygone.
If we point no moral, we tell the tale Of a stirring time when Britannia, pale With suspense, not fear, gathered her might, And girded her loins for impending fight : When the marshland rang with the note of War, And the beacon nightly flashed afar :
And roads, now lone and deserted, then Echoed the tramp of marching men :
And from North and South and East and West,
The proud old county called her best To stand, in accord with her ancient right,
In the van of England's mustered might.
FRANCIS ABELL.
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