CONTENTS

PAGE
I.The First Tooth[11]
II.The Boy and the Skylark—A Fable[14]
III.The Rainbow[18]
IV.Queen Oriana’s Dream[21]
V.The Sister’s Expostulation on the Brother’s learning Latin[23]
VI.The Brother’s Reply[26]
VII.On the Lord’s Prayer[29]
VIII.David in the Cave of Adullam[34]
IX.Cleanliness[36]
X.To a River in which a Child was drowned[39]
XI.The Boy and Snake[40]
XII.The Beasts in the Tower[43]
XIII.Time spent in Dress[47]
XIV.A Ballad: noting the difference of Rich and Poor, in the Ways of a Rich Noble’s Palace and a Poor Workhouse[50]
XV.The Broken Doll[55]
XVI.Going into Breeches[57]
XVII.The Three Friends[61]
XVIII.Memory[72]
XIX.Salome[74]
XX.The Peach[78]
XXI.The Magpie’s Nest[81]
XXII.Nursing[87]
XXIII.The Rook and the Sparrows[88]
XXIV.Feigned Courage[91]
XXV.Hester[94]
XXVI.Helen[97]
XXVII.The Beggar Man[100]
XXVIII.Breakfast[104]
XXIX.The Coffee Slips[107]
XXX.Written in the First Leaf of a Child’s Memorandum Book[110]
XXXI.Envy[112]
XXXII.Dialogue between Mother and Child[114]
XXXIII.The First Sight of Green Fields[116]
XXXIV.Lines suggested by a Picture of two Females by Leonardo da Vinci[119]
XXXV.Lines on the same Picture being removed to make place for a Portrait of a Lady by Titian[121]
XXXVI.Lines on the celebrated Picture by Leonardo da Vinci, called The Virgin of the Rocks[122]
XXXVII.On the same[123]
XXXVIII.A Vision of Repentance[124]

THE
FIRST TOOTH

I

SISTER

Through the house what busy joy

Just because the infant boy

Has a tiny tooth to show!

I have got a double row,

All as white and all as small;

Yet no one cares for mine at all.

He can say but half a word,

Yet that single sound’s preferr’d

To all the words that I can say

In the longest summer day.

He cannot walk; yet if he put

With mimic motion out his foot,

As if he thought he were advancing,

It’s prized more than my best dancing.

BROTHER

Sister, I know you jesting are,

Yet O! of jealousy beware.

If the smallest seed should be

In your mind, of jealousy,

It will spring and it will shoot

Till it bear the baneful fruit.

I remember you, my dear,

Young as is this infant here.

There was not a tooth of those

Your pretty even ivory rows,

But as anxiously was watch’d

Till it burst its shell new-hatch’d

As if it a phoenix were,

Or some other wonder rare.

So when you began to walk—

So when you began to talk—

As now, the same encomiums pass’d

’Tis not fitting this should last

Longer than our infant days;

A child is fed with milk and praise.

THE BOY AND THE
SKYLARK
A FABLE

II

“A wicked action fear to do,

When you are by yourself; for though

You think you can conceal it,

A little bird that’s in the air

The hidden trespass shall declare

And openly reveal it.”

Richard this saying oft had heard,

Until the sight of any bird

Would set his heart a-quaking;

He saw a host of winged spies

For ever o’er him in the skies,

Note of his actions taking.

This pious precept, while it stood

In his remembrance, kept him good

When nobody was by him;

For though no human eye was near,

Yet Richard still did wisely fear

The little bird should spy him.

But best resolves will sometimes sleep;

Poor frailty will not always keep

From that which is forbidden;

And Richard one day, left alone,

Laid hands on something not his own,

And hoped the theft was hidden.

His conscience slept a day or two,

As it is very apt to do,

When we with pain suppress it;

And though at times a slight remorse

Would raise a pang, it had not force

To make him yet confess it.

When on a day, as he abroad

Walk’d by his mother, in their road

He heard a skylark singing;

Smit with the sound, a flood of tears

Proclaim’d the superstitious fears

His inmost bosom wringing.

His mother, wondering, saw him cry,

And fondly ask’d the reason why?

Then Richard made confession,

And said, he fear’d the little bird

He singing in the air had heard

Was telling his transgression.

The words which Richard spoke below,

As sounds by nature upwards go,

Were to the skylark carried:

The airy traveller with surprise,

To hear his sayings, in the skies

On his mid-journey tarried.

His anger then the bird express’d:

“Sure, since the day I left the nest,

I ne’er heard folly utter’d

So fit to move a skylark’s mirth,

As what this little son of earth

Hath in his grossness mutter’d.

“Dull fool! to think we sons of air

On man’s low actions waste a care,

His virtues or his vices;

Or soaring on the summer gales

That we should stoop to carry tales

Of him or his devices!

“Mistaken fool! man needs not us

His secret merits to discuss,

Or spy out his transgression;

When once he feels his conscience stirr’d,

That voice within him is the bird

That moves him to confession.”