When one, arising in his place
With sparkling eyes and beaming face
Soon won attention from the rest,
And thus the listening throng addressed:
"For years and years, through heat and cold,
Our home has been this forest old;
The saplings which we used to bend
Now like a schooner's masts ascend.
|
Yet here we live, content to ride A springing bough with childish pride, Content to bathe in brook or bog Along with lizard, leech, and frog; We're far behind the age you'll find If once you note the human kind. |
The modern youths no longer lave
Their limbs beneath the muddy wave
Of meadow pool or village pond,
But seek the ocean far beyond.
If pleasure in the sea is found
Not offered by the streams around,
The Brownie band at once should haste
|
These unfamiliar joys to taste; No torch nor lantern's ray we'll need To show our path o'er dewy mead, The ponds and pitfalls in the swale, The open ditch, the slivered rail, The poison vine and thistle high Show clear before the Brownie's eye." —Next evening, as their plan they'd laid, The band soon gathered in the shade. All clustered like a swarm of bees They darted from the sheltering trees; And straight across the country wide Began their journey to the tide. And when they neared the beach at last,— The stout, the lean, the slow, the fast,— |
'T was hard to say, of all the lot,
Who foremost reached the famous spot.
"And now," said one with active mind.
"What proper garments can we find?
In bathing costume, as you know,
The people in the ocean go."
Another spoke, "For such demands,
The building large that yonder stands,
