AGAINST IDLENESS AND MISCHIEF.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day,
From ev'ry opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads her wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be past;
That I may give for ev'ry day
Some good account at last.
THE LITTLE GIRL TO HER DOLLY.
THERE, go to sleep, Dolly, in own mother's lap;
I've put on your night-gown and neat little cap;
So sleep, pretty baby, and shut up your eye,
Bye bye, little Dolly, lie still, and bye bye.
I'll lay my clean handkerchief over your head,
And then make believe that my lap is your
bed;
So hush, little dear, and be sure you don't cry,
Bye bye, little Dolly, lie still, and bye bye.
There, now it is morning, and time to get up,
And I'll crumb you a mess, in my doll's china cup;
So wake, little baby, and open your eye,
For I think it high time to have done with bye bye.
COME hither, and let us behold
The sun as he sinks to his rest,
The clouds tipped with crimson and gold
Are spreading all over the west.
Let us go to the top of the hill,
And watch them come sweeping along:
All nature is lonely and still,
And the birds have all ended their song.
The sun that shone bright all the day,
Is now gone quite out of our sight
And we must now hasten away,
For soon 'twill be darkness and night.
Oh, then like the bright setting sun
May we to our duty attend;
Then think on a day well begun
And cheerfully welcome the end.
The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
LL the day long, in the corn-field so
Father has toiled in the heat of the
Now the great bell from the farm
Telling the time of his labour is done.
Lay the white cloth for his coming, dear mother;
Set out his chair where he likes it to be;
Close at his side you shall stand, little brother;
Baby shall sit like a queen on his knee.
From the hard hand that has laboured so truly,
Toiling and straining that we might have brea:l,
We'll take the sickle1 that did its work duly,
Leave it to-night with the spade in the shed.
We'll hang around him with smiles and caresses,
Make him forget as we climb on his chair,
Toil that has wearied and care that oppresses,
All but his home and his little ones there.
THE BOY AND THE SHEEP.
"LAZY sheep, pray tell me why
In the pleasant fields you lie,
Eating grass and daisies white,
From the morning till the night?
Everything can something do,
But what kind of use are you?"
"Nay, my little fellow, nay,
Do not serve me so, I pray:
Don't you see the wool that grows
On my back to make you clothes?
Cold, ay, very cold you'd be,
JOHN GILPIN was a citizen
Of credit and renown,
A train-band' captain eke" was he
Of famous London town.
John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear,
"Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen.
"To-morrow is our wedding-day,
And we will then repair
Unto the Bell at Edmonton3
All in a chaise and pair.
"My sister and my sister's child,
Myself and children three,
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride
On horseback after we."4
1 The name of the bands of citizens trained in former times to act as soldiers, 2 eke, also.
8 A Village north of London.
Notice the bad grammar: what should it be?
|