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Daily near my table steal,
While I pick my scanty meal
Doubt not, little though there be,
But I'll cast a crumb to thee,
Well rewarded if I spy
Pleasure in thy glancing eye;
See thee, when thou 'st eat thy fill,
Plume thy breast, and wipe thy bill.
Come, my feathered friend, again,
Well thou know'st the broken pane.

MARINER'S HYMN. Mrs. Southey.

LAUNCH thy bark, mariner!
Christian, God speed thee;
Let loose the rudder bands,
Good angels lead thee!
Set thy sails warily,
Tempests will come;
Steer thy course steadily,
Christian, steer home!

Look to the weather bow,
Breakers are round thee;
Let fall the plummet now,
Shallows may ground thee.
Reef in the foresail, there!
Hold the helm fast!
So, let the vessel wear,
There swept the blast.

What of the night, watchman?
What of the night?
"Cloudy, all quiet,

No land yet, all 's right."

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THE children of the rich man, no carking care they

know;

Like lilies in the sunshine, how beautiful they grow! And well may they be beautiful; in raiment of the best, In velvet, gold, and ermine, their little forms are drest. With a hat and jaunty feather set lightly on their head, And golden hair, like angels' locks, over their shoul ders spread.

And well may they be beautiful; they toil not, neither

spin,

Nor dig, nor delve, nor do they aught their daily bread to win.

They eat from gold and silver all luxuries wealth can buy;

They sleep on beds of softest down, in chambers rich. and high.

They dwell in lordly houses, with gardens round about, And servants do attend them if they go in or out.

They have music for the hearing, and pictures for the eye,

And exquisite and costly things each sense to gratify.

No wonder they are beautiful! and if they chance to die,

Among dead lords and ladies, in the chancel-vault, they

lie,

With marble tablets on the wall inscribed, that all may know

The children of the rich man are mouldering below.

The children of the poor man, around the humble doors

They throng of city alleys and solitary moors.

In hot and noisy factories they turn the ceaseless

wheel,

And eat with feeble appetite their coarse and joyless meal.

They rise up in the morning, ne'er dreaming of delight, And weary, spent, and heartsore, they go to bed at

night.

78

THE TWO ESTATES.

They have no brave apparel, with golden clasp and

gem;

So their clothes keep out the weather, they 're good enough for them.

Their hands are broad and horny; they hunger and are cold;

They learn what toil and sorrow mean ere they are five years old.

The poor man's child must step aside if the rich man's child go by ;

And scarcely aught may minister to his little vanity.

And of what could he be vain? his most beautiful

array

Is what the rich man's children have worn and cast

away.

The finely-spun, the many-hued, the new, are not for him,

He must clothe himself, with thankfulness, in garments soiled and dim.

He sees the children of the rich in chariots gay go by, And, "What a heavenly life is theirs!" he sayeth with a sigh.

Then straightway to his work he goeth, for, feeble though he be,

His daily toil must still be done to help the family. Thus live the poor man's children; and if they chance to die,

In plain, uncostly coffins, 'mong common graves, they

lie;

Nor monument nor headstone their humble names

declare;

But thou, O God, wilt not forget the poor man's children there!

THE TOWN AND COUNTRY CHILD.

Cunningham.

CHILD of the country! free as air
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair;
Born, like the lily, where the dew
Lies odorous when the day is new;
Fed 'mid the May-flowers like the bee;
Nursed to sweet music on the knee;
Lulled in the breast to that glad tune
Which winds make 'mong the woods of June;
I sing of thee; 't is sweet to sing
Of such a fair and gladsome thing.
Child of the town! for thee I sigh;
A gilded roof's thy golden sky,
A carpet is thy daisied sod,

A narrow street thy boundless road,
Thy rushing deer 's the clattering tramp.
Of watchmen, thy best light's a lamp,-
Through smoke, and not through trellised vines
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines;
I sing of thee in sadness; where
Else is wreck wrought in aught so farr?
Child of the country! thy small feet
Tread on strawberries red and sweet;
With thee I wander forth to see
The flowers which most delight the bee;
The bush o'er which the throstle sung
In April, while she nursed her young;
The den beneath the sloe-thorn, where
She bred her twins, the timorous hare;
The knoll, wrought o'er with wild blue-bells,
Where brown bees build their balmy cells;
The greenwood stream, the shady pool,
Where trouts leap when the day is cool.

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