Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/127

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123

HAUNTED BY TIGERS.


NATHAN BEANS and William Lambert were two wild New England boys,
Known from infancy to revel only in forbidden joys.
Many a mother of Nantucket bristled when she heard them come,
With a horrid skulking whistle, tempting her good lad from home.
But for all maternal bristling little did they seem to care.
And they loved each other dearly, did this good-for-nothing pair.

So they lived till eighteen summers found them in the same repute,—
They had well-developed muscles, and loose characters to boot.