'Well, and the mother?' Robin cried.
'O she!' said Ben--'I think she died.'
'Battle and blood, death and disease,
Upon the tainted Tropic seas -
The attendant sharks that chew the cud -
The abhorred scuppers spouting blood -
The untended dead, the Tropic sun -
The thunder of the murderous gun -
The cut-throat crew--the Captain's curse -
The tempest blustering worse and worse -
These have I known and these can stand,
But you--I settle out of hand!'
Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben
Dead and rotten, there and then.
Poem: II--THE BUILDER'S DOOM
In eighteen-twenty Deacon Thin
Feu'd the land and fenced it in ,
And laid his broad foundations down
About a furlong out of town.
Early and late the work went on.
The carts were toiling ere the dawn ;
The mason whistled, the h
