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PORTSMOUTH IN TIME OF PEACE.
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Where now are the frolicsome care-killing souls,
With their girls and their fiddlers, their dances and bowls?
Where now are the blue jackets, once on our shore
The promoters of merriment, spending their store?
Where now are our tars in these dull piping times?
Laid up like old hulks, or enlisted in climes
Where the struggle for liberty calls on the brave,
The Peruvians, the Greeks, or Brazilians to save
From the yoke of oppression--there, Britons are found
Dealing death and destruction to tyrants around;
For wherever our tars rear the banner of fame,
They are still the victorious sons of the main.
A Trip to Portsmouth on board the Medina Steam-Boat--The
Change from War to Peace--Its Consequences--The Portsmouth
Greys--The Man of War's Man--Tom Tackle and his Shipmate--
Lamentation of a Tar--The Hero Cochrane--An old
Acquaintance--Reminiscences of the past--Sketches of Point-
Street and Gosport Beach--Naval Anecdotes--"A Man's like a
Ship on the Ocean of Life."
"Bear a hand, old fellow!" said Horace Eglantine one morning, coming
down the companion hatchway of the Rover: "if you have any mind for a
land-cruise, let us make Portsmouth to-day on board the steamer, while
our yacht goes up the harbour to get her copper polished and her rigging
overhauled.
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