Little epitome of man! Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt-pies. (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning I wonder he left the court, where he was better life, (He's got a knife !) Thou enviable being! off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten, by way of toys. No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, When his Father comes home, and he always 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! 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 consarns, and don't be making a mob in the street; (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across Thou pretty opening rose ! my poor little boy, have you, in your beat? (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your 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 prigs; 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. patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. His shirt, it's very lucky I'd got washing in the 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, and not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him. And then he has got such dear winning ways but 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; "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was 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, 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 | His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perwretch, 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 plext With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next. He kneels at his dear mother's knee; she teacheth him to pray; And strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the words which he will say. O, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me, soon come back, you'll see me drop stone A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will dead on the place. I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and would n'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. Why, there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin ! But let me get him home, with a good grip of his | hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin! THE THREE SONS. THOMAS HOOD. I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould. They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears, That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years. I cannot say how this may be; I know his face is fair, And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious air; I know his heart is kind and fond; I know he loveth me; But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fervency. But that which others most admire, is the thought which fills his mind, The food for grave inquiring speech he everywhere doth find. Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk be; And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow, I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now. I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be, How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee; I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his brother's, keen, Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his hath ever been; But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling; And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing. When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street, Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet. A playfellow is he to all; and yet, with cheerful tone, Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone. His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden home and hearth, To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth. Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart may prove As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for earthly love; And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim, God comfort us for all the love which we shall lose in him. He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot children talk. tell, Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not For they reckon not by years and months where on bat or ball, he has gone to dwell. But looks on manhood's ways and works, and To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant aptly mimics all. smiles were given ; And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to The horses neighed, and the oxen lowed, live in heaven. I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he weareth now, Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow. The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel, Are numbered with the secret things which God Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never cease; Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace. It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss may sever; But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours forever. When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be, When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery, When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief and pain, Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here again. JOHN MOULTRIE. GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD MORNING. A FAIR little girl sat under a tree Such a number of rooks came over her head, The sheep's "Bleat! bleat!' came over the All seeming to say, with a quiet delight, She did not say to the sun, "Good night! The tall pink foxglove bowed his head; RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. THE GAMBOLS OF CHILDREN. Down the dimpled greensward dancing Rows of liquid eyes in laughter, How they glimmer, how they quiver! Tipsy band of rubious faces, Flushed with Joy's ethereal spirit, GEORGE DARLEY. UNDER MY WINDOW. UNDER my window, under my window, There's Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, Under my window, under my window, Merry and clear, the voice I hear, Of each glad-hearted rover. Ah! sly little Kate, she steals my roses; Under my window, under my window, I catch them all together: — Under my window, under my window, THOMAS WESTWOOD. THE MOTHER'S HEART. WHEN first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure; Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy years, Yet patient to rebuke when justly given ; Obedient, easy to be reconciled, And meekly cheerful; such wert thou, my child! 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, Under the bough, or by the firelight dancing, With thy sweet temper, and thy spirit free, Didst come, as restless as a bird's wing glancing, Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Like a young sunbeam to the gladdened earth! 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 re boundeth; And many a mirthful jest and mock reply Lurked in the laughter of thy dark-blue eye. 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, others, Mingling with every playful infant wile A mimic majesty that made us smile. And O, most like a regal child wert thou! ing; And proud the lifting of thy stately head, And the firm bearing of thy conscious tread. Different from both! yet each succeeding claim I, that all other love had been forswearing, Forthwith admitted, equal and the same; Nor injured either by this love's comparing, Nor stole a fraction for the newer call, But in the mother's heart found room for all! CAROLINE E. NORTON. THE MOTHER'S HOPE. Is there, when the winds are singing Is there, of the sounds that float Half so sweet, and clear, and wild, Listen and be now delighted: Morn hath touched her golden strings; Earth and Sky their vows have plighted ; Life and Light are reunited Amid countless carolings; There's a sound that 's sweeter far, Though it be a stranger's tone, For it answereth to his own. I am old, so old I can write a letter; O Moon in the night I have seen you sailing And shining so round and low. You were bright— ah, bright — but your light is failing ; You are nothing now but a bow. You Moon! have you done something wrong in heaven, That God has hidden your face? I hope, if you have, you will soon be forgiven, And shine again in your place. O velvet Bee! you 're a dusty fellow, You've powdered your legs with gold. O brave marsh Mary-buds, rich and yellow, Give me your money to hold! O Columbine open your folded wrapper, Where two twin turtle-doves dwell! O Cuckoopint! toll me the purple clapper That hangs in your clear green bell! And show me your nest, with the young ones in it I will not steal them away: I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet! I am seven times one to-day. JEAN INGELOW, SEVEN TIMES FOUR. HEIGH-HO! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall ! When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses, And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! Here's two bonny boys, and here's mother's own lasses, Eager to gather them all. Heigh-ho daisies and buttercups ! Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow, That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; Sing, "Heart, thou art wide though the house be but narrow, Sing once, and sing it again. |