Why, O why such awkward blunders? Nor have thrust yourself where woman Do you think that now they 'll name it, Round about the noisy women Pass the helpless stranger now, Raptured with each nascent feature, Chin and mouth and eyes and brow ; And for this young bud of promise All neglect the rose in bloom, Eldest born, who, quite forgotten, Pouts within her lonely room. Sound the stage-horn! ring the cow-bell! Seize your pen, O dreaming poet! And in numbers smooth as may be, Betsey 's got another baby! THE chicken walks from out its shell, and goes its food to find, While helpless lies for months and years the child of human kind; Which yet, by gradual growth, o'ertops all else in strength and mind. O, slow of thought! remember this, — be thankful and resigned. SAADI THE PERSIAN POET OF SCHIRAZ. HOME. THOU, whose every hour Is spent in home's green bower, Where love, like golden fruit o'erhanging grows, Where those to thy soul sweet United, circling, meet, As lapping leaves which form the entire rose; Thank thy God well, — soon from this joy thy day Passes away. Thou, from whose household nooks Peep forth gay gleaming looks, Those "fairy heads" shot up from opening flowers, With wondrous perfume filled The fresh, the undistilled, The overflowing bliss that childhood showers Praise him who gave, and at whose word their stay Passes away. EXTRACT FROM KING JOHN. ACT III. King Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child. Constance. He talks to me that never had a son. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; OUR BIRTHDAYS. WHAT different dooms our birthdays bring! While that little craft is cast away What different lots our stars accord! This babe to be hailed and wooed as a Lord! And the other sex, the tender, the fair, What wide reverses of fate are there, Whilst Margaret, charmed by the Bulbul rare, In a garden of Gul reposes, Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street, FRAGMENT FROM THE LIST OF "DAILY TRIALS." CHILDREN, with drums. Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass, Peripatetics with a blade of grass Between their thumbs. O. W. HOLMES. THE CHILD AND THE GOSSAMER. A SUNBEAM was playing through flowers that hung And it played with the gossamer beam that shed At play with the dazzling things of air. |