CHAPTER XI.
THE PURSUIT OF POETRY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
The feeling of insecurity concerning one's possessions in the Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford, a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard.

I had very early made the acquaintance of Lemsford.

It is curious, how unerringly a man pitches upon a spirit, any way akin to his own, even in the most miscellaneous mob.
Lemsford was a poet; so thoroughly inspired with the divine afflatus, that not even all the tar and tumult of a man-of-war could drive it out of him.
As may readily be imagined, the business of writing verse is a very different thing on the gun-deck of a frigate, from what the gentle and sequestered Wordsworth found it at placid Rydal Mount in Westmoreland.
In a frigate, you cannot sit down and meander off your sonnets, when the full heart prompts; but only, when more important duties permit: such as bracing round the yards, or reefing top-sails fore and aft.
Nevertheless, every fragment of time at his command was religiously devoted by Lemsford to the Nine.

At the most unseasonable hours, you would behold him, seated apart, in some corner among the guns--a shot-box before him, pen in hand, and eyes "_in a fine frenzy rolling_." "What's that 'ere born nat'ral about ?"--"He's got a fit, hain't he ?" were exclamations often made by the less learned of his shipmates.

Some deemed him a conjurer; others a lunatic; and the knowing ones said, that he must be a crazy Methodist.