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Page 90—Reading Land

Reading
"And so you do not like to spell,
Mary, my dear, oh, very well:
'Tis dull and troublesome,' you say,
And you had rather be at play.
"Then bring me all your books again;
Nay, Mary, why do you complain?
For as you do not choose to read,
You shall not have your books, indeed.
"So, as you wish to be a dunce,
Pray go and fetch me them at once;
For if you will not learn to spell,
'Tis vain to think of reading well.
"Do you not think you'll blush to own
When you become a woman grown,
Without one good excuse to plead,
That you have never learnt to read?"
"Oh, dear mamma," said Mary then,
"Do let me have my books again;
I'll not fret any more indeed,
If you will let me learn to read."
Jane Taylor
Mrs Grammar's Ball
Mrs Grammar once gave a fine ball
To the nine different parts of our speech;
To the short and the tall,
To the stout and the small,
There were pies, plums and puddings for each.
And first little Articles came,
In a hurry to make themselves known—
Fat A, An, and The;
But none of the three
Could stand for a minute alone.
The Adjectives came to announce
That their dear friends the Nouns were at hand,
Rough, rougher and roughest,
Tough, tougher and toughest,
Fat, merry, good-natured and grand.
The Nouns were indeed on their way,
Tens of thousands, and more, I should think;
For each name we could utter,
Shop, shoulder, or shutter,
Is a noun: lady, lion or link.
The Pronouns were hastening fast
To push the Nouns out of their places:
I, thou, he, and she,
You, it, they, and we,
With their sprightly intelligent faces.
Some cried out, "Make way for the Verbs!
A great crowd is coming in view!"
To light and to smile,
To fight and to bite,
To be, and to have, and to do.
The Adverbs attended on the Verbs,
Behind as their footmen they ran;
As this, "to fight badly,"
And "run away gladly,"
Shows how fighting and running were done.
Prepositions came in, by, and near;
With Conjunctions, a wee little band,
As either you or he,
But neither I nor she;
They held their great friends by the hand.
Then, too, with a hip, hip, hurrah!
Rushed in Interjections uproarious;
Dear me! well-a-day!
When they saw the display,
"Ha! Ha!" they all shouted out, "glorious!"
But, alas! what misfortunes were nigh!
While the fun and the feasting pleased each,
Pounced on them at once
A monster—a Dunce!
And confounded the nine parts of speech!
Help! friends! to the rescue! on you
For aid Verb and Article call;
Oh! give your protection
To poor Interjection,
Noun, Pronoun, Conjunction, and all!
Grammar In Rhyme
Three little words we often see,
And Article, a, an, the.
Noun's the name of anything,
As school or garden, hoop or string.
Adjective tells the kind of noun,
As great, small, pretty, white or brown.
Instead of nouns, the Pronoun stand
John's head, his face, my arm, your hand.
Verbs tell us of something being done,
To read, write, count, sing, jump, or run.
How things are done, the Adverbs tell,
As slowly, quickly, ill, or well.
A Preposition stands before
A noun, as in or through a door.
Conjunctions join the nouns together
as men and children, wind and weather.
The Interjection shows surprise,
As Oh, how pretty! Ah, how wise!
The whole are called nine parts of speech,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.
Value of Reading
The poor wretch who digs the mine for bread,
Or ploughs so that others may be fed,—
Feels less fatigue, than that decreed
To him that cannot think or read!
Hannah More

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