Prefer with plain food to be fed,
Rather than what are dainties styl'd;
A sweet tooth in an infant's head
Is pardon'd, not in a grown child.
If parent, aunt, or liberal friend,
With splendid shilling line your purse,
Do not the same on sweetmeats spend,
Nor appetite with pampering nurse.
Go buy a book; a dainty eaten
Is vanish'd, and no sweets remain;
They who their minds with knowledge sweeten,
The savour long as life retain.
Purchase some toy, a horse of wood,
A pasteboard ship; their structure scan;
Their mimic uses understood,
The school-boy make a kind of man.
Go see some show; pictures or prints;
Or beasts far brought from Indian land;
Those foreign sights oft furnish hints,
That may the youthful mind expand.
And something of your store impart,
To feed the poor and hungry soul;
What buys for you the needless tart,
May purchase him a needful roll.
INCORRECT SPEAKING
Incorrectness in your speech
Carefully avoid, my Anna;
Study well the sense of each
Sentence, lest in any manner
It misrepresent the truth;
Veracity's the charm of youth.
You will not, I know, tell lies,
If you know what you are speaking.—
Truth is shy, and from us flies;
Unless diligently seeking
Into every word we pry,
Falsehood will her place supply.
Falsehood is not shy, not she,—
Ever ready to take place of
Truth, too oft we Falsehood see,
Or at least some latent trace of
Falsehood, in the incorrect
Words of those who Truth respect.