O, pray to them softly, my baby, with me! I'm in love with you, Baby Louise! Why you never raise your beautiful head! Some day, little one, your cheek will grow red With a flush of delight, to hear the words said, For I know that the angels are whispering to "I love you," Baby Louise. Do you hear me, Baby Louise? I have sung your praises for nearly an hour, thee." The dawn of the morning Saw Dermot returning, And your lashes keep drooping lower and lower, And the wife wept with joy her babe's father to see; And closely caressing Her child with a blessing, M. E. TO CHARLOTTE PULTENEY. TIMELY blossom, Infant fair, Fondling of a happy pair, Sleeping, waking, still at ease, Yet too innocent to blush; AMBROSE PHILIPS TO MY INFANT SON. THOU happy, happy elf! (But stop, first let me kiss away that tear,) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear,) Thou merry, laughing sprite, With spirits, feather light, 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!) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey From every blossom in the world that blows, Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny, (Another tumble! That's his precious nose!) Thy father's pride and hope! (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! THE LOST HEIR. "O where, and O 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; 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, No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being Play on, play on, My elfin John ! Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, lost; and the beef and the inguns not done! (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) La bless you, good folks, mind your own conWith fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, carns, and don't be making a mob in the street; 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. 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 young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin Father's best pair. 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 his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a rest; whole bone in his skin! 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 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 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. 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 eager dreaming; When once grown up and tall Do such pleasant fancies spring |