W. V«.

A clamour, half a sob and half a cheer —

As the boatmen flung the lifeboat anchor out,

And the gallant Azd sheered in beneath the
ship, y

Beneath the shadow of the London Fusther /

“ We can carry may be thirty at a trip”
(Hurrah for Ramsgate town ! )
“ Quick, the women and the children /”

O’er the side
Two sailors, slung in bowlines, hung to help
the women down —
Poor women, shrinking back in their dismay
As they saw their ark of refuge, smothered
up in spray,
Ranging wildly this and that way in the rac-
ing of the tide ;
As they watched it rise and drop, with its
crew of stalwart men,
When a huge sea swung it upward to the
bulwarks of the ship,
And, sweeping by in thunder, sent it plung-
ing down again.
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