POETRY.

THE SONG OF THE SOU-WESTER.

THE sun was lost in a leaden sky,

And the shore lay under our lee ; When a great Sou'-Wester hurricane high Came rollicking up the sea.

He played with the fleet as a boy with boats Till out for the Downs we ran, And he laughed with the roar of a thousand throats At the militant ways of man :

Oh ! I am the enemy most of might,

The other be who you please !

Gunner and guns may all be right Flags a-flying and armour tight, But I am the fellow you've first to fight...

The giant that swings the seas !

A dozen of middies were down below

Chasing the X they love, While the table curtseyed long and slow, And the lamps were giddy above.

The lesson was all of a ship and a shot, And some of it may have been true, But the word they heard and never forgot

Was the word of the wind that blew : Oh ! I am the enemy most of might, &a.

The Middy with luck is a Captain soon, With luck he may bear one day His own big guns a-bumming the tune "'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay."

But wherever he goes, with friends or foes,

And whatever may there befall, He'll hear for ever a voice he knows For ever defying them all : Oh ! I am the enemy most of might, &a.

HENRY NEWSOM