Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin; (My dear, the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck ! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that rings the air, (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire !) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In love's dear chain so bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents; - (Drat the boy! There goes my ink.) Thou cherub, but of earth; Fit playfellow for fairies, by moonlight pale, (That dog will bite him, if he pulls his tail!) (He'll break that mirror with that skippingrope!) With pure heart newly stamped from nature's mint, (Where did he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove ! (He'll have that ring off with another shove,) Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest ! (Are these torn clothes his best ?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan,) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life, (He's got a knife!) Thou enviable being ! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John ! Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk ! (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose ! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the south, I cannot write unless he's sent above.) THOMAS HOOD. THE LOST HEIR. "O where, and O where Is my bonnie laddie gone?" - OLD SONG. ONE day, as I was going by That chilled my very blood; Bedaubed with grease and mud. "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild ! Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child? Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. I am all in a quiver-get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab! You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab. The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt-pies. I wonder he left the court, where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys. When his Father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and the inguns not done! La bless you, good folks, mind your own concarns, and don't be making a mob in the street; O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you, in your beat? Do, good people, move on! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs; Saints forbid! but he's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes by the priggs; He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair; And his trousers considering not very much | Why, there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin! His shirt, it's very lucky I'd got washing in the But let me get him home, with a good grip of tub, or that might have gone with the rest; But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast. He'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sewed in, and not quite so much jagged at the brim. With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, ard not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him. And then he has got such dear winning waysbut O, I never, never shall see him no more! O dear! to think of losing him just after nussing him back from death's door! Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny! And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many. And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all, and, drat him! made a seize of our hog. It's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown, And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town. Billy - where are you, Billy, I say? come, Billy, come home, to your best of Mothers! I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they 'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. Or maybe he's stole by some chimbly-sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues and what not, And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketched, and the chimbly 's red hot. O, I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin' eyes on his face. For he's my darlin' of darlin's, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me drop stone dead on the place. I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and wouldn't I hug him and kiss him! Lawk! I never knew what a precious he was but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him. his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin! THOMAS HOOD. LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD COME back, come back together, By the haunted hours before ! The fields were covered over Summer shed its shining store ; She plucked them and caressed them; How the heart of childhood dances Upon a sunny day ! Made all of eager dreaming; Do such pleasant fancies spring She seems like an ideal love, A younger sister for the heart; With Red Riding Hood, the darling, Did the painter, dreaming Winning it with eager eyes Giving us a sweet surprise Did the little maiden stay. Sorrowful the tale for us; We, too, loiter mid life's flowers, A little while so glorious, So soon lost in darker hours. All love lingering on their way, Like Red Riding Hood, the darling, The flower of fairy lore. LÆTITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. Now ponder well, you parents dear, A doleful story you shall hear, In time brought forth to light: A gentleman, of good account, Whose wealth and riches did surmount Sore sick he was, and like to die, In love they lived, in love they died, The one a fine and pretty boy, Not passing three years old; The other a girl, more young than he, And made in beauty's mould. The father left his little son, As plainly doth appear, When he to perfect age should come, Three hundred pounds a year, And to his little daughter Jane "Now, brother," said the dying man, "Look to my children dear; Be good unto my boy and girl, No friends else I have here." With that bespake their mother dear, "O brother kind," quoth she, "You are the man must bring our babes To wealth or misery. "And if you keep them carefully, She kissed her children small: "God bless you both, my children dear," With that the tears did fall. Their parents being dead and gone, And brings them home unto his house, To make them both away. He bargained with two ruffians strong, That they should take these children young, He told his wife, and all he had He did the children send To be brought up in fair London, Away then went these pretty babes, They should on cock-horse ride; To those that should their butchers be, And work their lives' decay, So that the pretty speech they had Made Murder's heart relent; And they that undertook the deed Full sore they did repent. Yet one of them, more hard of heart, The other would not agree thereto, He took the children by the hand And bade them come and go with him, And look they did not cry; "Stay here," quoth he, "I'll bring you bread When I do come again." These pretty babes, with hand in hand, Went wandering up and down, But nevermore they saw the man Approaching from the town. Their pretty lips with blackberries Were all besmeared and dyed, And when they saw the darksome night They sate them down and cried. Thus wandered these two pretty babes Till death did end their grief; In one another's arms they died, As babes wanting relief. No burial this pretty pair Of any man receives, Till robin redbreast, painfully, Did cover them with leaves. And now the heavy wrath of God Upon their uncle fell; Yea, fearful fiends did haunt his house, His conscience felt an hell. His barns were fired, his goods consumed, His lands were barren made; His cattle died within the field, And nothing with him stayed. And, in the voyage of Portugal, Two of his sons did die; And, to conclude, himself was brought To extreme misery. He pawned and mortgaged all his land Ere seven years came about; And now, at length, this wicked act The fellow that did take in hand Was for a robber judged to die, In prison long did rest. You that executors be made, Of children that be fatherless, A MOTHER'S LOVE. ANONYMOUS A LITTLE in the doorway sitting, Yet her thoughts were with her child. But when the boy had heard her voice, O, what a loveliness her eyes THOMAS BURBIDGE THE GAMBOLS OF CHILDREN. Down the dimpled greensward dancing Love's irregular little levy. Rows of liquid eyes in laughter, How they glimmer, how they quiver ! Sparkling one another after, Like bright ripples on a river. Tipsy band of rubious faces, GEORGE DARLEY. UNDER MY WINDOW. UNDER my window, under my window, Flit to and fro together: Under my window, under my window, Merry and clear, the voice I hear, Ah! sly little Kate, she steals my roses; Under my window, under my window, Under my window, under my window, And off through the orchard closes; While Maud she flouts, and Bell she pouts, They scamper and drop their posies; But dear little Kate takes naught amiss, And leaps in my arms with a loving kiss, And I give her all my roses. THOMAS WESTWOOD. THE MOTHER'S HEART. WHEN first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy years, And meekly cheerful; such wert thou, my child! Not willing to be left - still by my side, Haunting my walks, while summer-day was dying; Nor leaving in thy turn, but pleased to glide Through the dark room where I was sadly lying; Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek, O boy! of such as thou are oftenest made Earth's fragile idols; like a tender flower, No strength in all thy freshness, prone to fade, And bending weakly to the thunder-shower; Still, round the loved, thy heart found force to bind, And clung, like woodbine shaken in the wind! Then THOU, my merry love, - bold in thy glee, Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Thine was the shout, the song, the burst of joy, Which sweet from childhood's rosy lip resoundeth; Thine was the eager spirit naught could cloy, And the glad heart from which all grief reboundeth; And many a mirthful jest and mock reply And thine was many an art to win and bless, The cold and stern to joy and fondness warming; The coaxing smile, the frequent soft caress, The earnest, tearful prayer all wrath disarming! Again my heart a new affection found, But thought that love with thee had reached its bound. At length THOU camest, - thou, the last and least, Nicknamed "the Emperor" by thy laughing brothers, Because a haughty spirit swelled thy breast, And thou didst seek to rule and sway the others, And O, most like a regal child wert thou ! |