[From the Boston Courier.] Ballad of the Alarmed Skipper. "It was an ancient mariner." Many a long year ago, Nantucket skipper had a plan. Of finding out, through 'laying low,' How near New York their schooners ran. The custom was to grease the lead, And then by sounding through the night, Knowing the soil that stuck, so well, They always guessed the reckoning right. A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim, Could tell, by tasting, just the spot, And so below he'd 'dowse the glim'— After, of course, his 'something hot.' Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock, This ancient skipper might be found; No matter how his craft would rock— He slept,—and skipper slept profound. The watch on deck, would now and then Run down and wake him with the lead, He'd up, and taste, and tell the men, How many miles they went ahead. One night 'twas Jotham Marden's watch; A wag was Jo,—the pedlar's son,— And so he mused, (the wanton wretch,) 'To-night I'll have a grain of fun.' We're all a set of stupid fools, To think the skipper knows by tasting, What ground he's on,—Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting. And so he took the well-greased lead, And rubbed it o'er a box of earth That stood on deck, (a parsnip bed,) And then he sought the skipper berth. "Where are we now, sir? please to taste; The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Then opened his eyes in wondrous haste, And then upon the floor he sprung. The skipper stormed and tore his hair, Thrust on his boots and roared to Marden, "Nantucket's sunk, and here we are Right over old Marm Hackett's garden."