From “The Bab Ballads”
’T WAS on the shores that round our coast
    From Deal to Ramsgate span,
That I found alone, on a piece of stone,
    An elderly naval man.

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,
    And weedy and long was he;
And I heard this wight on the shore recite,
    In a singular minor key:—

“O, I am a...