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42

THE POOR CHILD'S HYMN.

-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

WORDSWORTH.

37. THE POOR CHILD'S HYMN.

WE are poor and lowly born;
With the poor we bide;
Labour is our heritage,

Care and want beside."

What of this? our blessed Lord

Was of lowly birth,

And poor, toiling fishermen

Were his friends on earth!

We are ignorant and young
Simple children all;

Gifted with but humble powers,
And of learning small.

What of this? our blessed Lord

Loved such as we;

How he blessed the little ones

Sitting on his knee!

MARY HOWITT.

THE CUCKOO.

38. THE CUCKOO.

DELIGHTFUL visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

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The schoolboy, wandering through the wood,
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

Soon as the pea puts on the bloom,

Thou fliest the vocal vale;

An annual guest in other lands,
Another Spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No Winter in thy year!

LOGAN.

39. ARIEL'S SONG.

WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I;

In a cowslip's bell I lie :

There I couch, when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly,

After summer, merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

SHAKESPEARE.

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A FIELD FLOWER.

40. A FIELD FLOWER.

ON FINDING ONE IN BLOOM ON CHRISTMAS DAY.
THERE is a flower, a little flower,

With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field
In gay but quick succession shine;
Race after race their honours yield,
They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charms,
Lights pale October on its way,
And twines December's arms.
The purple heath, and golden broom,
On moory mountains catch the gale:
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,
The violet in the vale.

But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Plays on the margin of the rill,
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms on consecrated ground,
In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem,
The wild bee murmurs on its breast,
The blue fly bends its pensile stem
Light o'er the skylark's nest,

A SUMMER INVOCATION.

"Tis Flora's page ;-in every place,
In every season, fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms everywhere.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;

The rose has but a summer reign,

The DAISY never dies.

MONTGOMERY.

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41. A SUMMER INVOCATION.

O GENTLE, gentle, summer rain,
Let not the silver lily pine,
The drooping lily pine, in vain

To feel that dewy touch of thine;
To drink thy freshness once again,
O gentle, gentle, summer rain.

In heat, the landscape quivering lies;
The cattle pant beneath the tree;
Through parching air and purple skies,
The earth looks up in vain for thee:
For thee, for thee, it looks in vain,
O, gentle, gentle, summer rain.

Come thou and brim the meadow streams,
And soften all the hills with mist;
O, falling dew, from burning dreams,
By thee shall herb and flower be kist;
And earth shall bless thee yet again,
O, gentle, gentle, summer rain.

BENNETT.

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SHORT REFLECTIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE.

42. SHORT REFLECTIONS FROM SHAKE

SPEARE.

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in this naughty world.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do;
Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;
But riches, endless, are as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

This above all,-to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

43. A CRADLE HYMN.

SLEEP, Sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling ;

Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth :
Come, soft slumber, balmily.

COLERIDGE.

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