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 where Is my bonnie laddie gone?"-OLD SONG, ONE day, as I was going by That part of Holborn christened High, That chilled my very blood; I saw a crazy woman sally, Bedaubed with grease and mud. She turned her East, she turned her West, With streaming hair and heaving breast, As one stark mad with grief. "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, patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the 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, and not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him. And then he has got such dear winning waysbut 0, 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. 0, 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; They had never seemed so sweet before, How the heart of childhood dances It has its own romances, And a wide, wide world have they! A world where Phantasie is king, Made all of cager dreaming; When once grown up and tallNow is the time for schemingThen we shall do them all! Do such pleasant fancies spring For Red Riding Hood, the darling, The flower of fairy lore? She seems like an ideal love, The poetry of childhood shown, And yet loved with a real love, As if she were out own, A younger sister for the heart; Her hair is brown and bright; With Red Riding Hood, the darling, Did the painter, dreaming In a morning hour, Of this fairy flower? Giving us a sweet surprise In Red Riding Hood, the darling, Too long in the meadow staying, 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, LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. In time brought forth to light: Whose wealth and riches did surmount Sore sick he was, and like to die, No help then he could have; His wife by him as sick did lie, And both possessed one grave. No love between these two was lost, Each was to other kind; In love they lived, in love they died, And left two babes behind: 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, "You are the man must bring our babes To wealth or misery. "And if you keep them carefully, Then God will you reward; If otherwise you seem to deal, God will your deeds regard." With lips as cold as any stone She kissed her children small: "God bless you both, my children dear," With that the tears did fall. Their parents being dead and gone, The children home he takes, And brings them home unto his house, And much of them he makes. He had not kept these pretty babes A twelvemonth and a day, But, for their wealth, he did devise 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 Away then went these pretty babes, They should on cock-horse ride; So that the pretty speech they had Made Murder's heart relent; And they that undertook the deed Full sore they did repent. The fellow that did take in hand These children for to kill Was for a robber judged to die, As was God's blessed will; Who did confess the very truth, The which is here expressed; Their uncle died while he, for debt, In prison long did rest. You that executors be made, And overseers eke, Of children that be fatherless, A MOTHER'S LOVE. ANONYMOUS A LITTLE in the doorway sitting, But when the boy had heard her voice, O, what a loveliness her eyes O, mother's love is glorifying, In the eyes a moistened light, 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, 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 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, My eldest born, first hope, and dearest treasure, My heart received thee with a joy beyond All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure; Nor thought that any love again might be So deep and strong as that I felt for thee. Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy years, And natural piety that leaned to heaven; Wrung by a harsh word suddenly to tears, Yet patient to rebuke when justly given; Obedient, easy to be reconciled, And meekly cheerful; such wert thou, my child! |