| A blockhead |
A MAGPIE once was such a dunce,
That all the people said,
More bricks would lie in a fish’s eye,
Than learning in his head.
|
| And though his mother herself did bother
And every trouble took,
Yet not one word could that dull bird
Repeat without his book.
|
| Till once he saw a young jackdaw
Who dearly loved his letters;
Though not so much his taste was such,
As ’twas to ape his betters.
|
| Howe’er this be the jackdaw he
Could tell a funny story;
And many a bird his prattle heard
And envied him his glory.
|
| may emulate
eloquence; |
But when he shew’d the wond’ring crowd
How he could spout and swell,
The Magpie tried for very pride
If he could do as well.
|
| and, by
practice,
| And every night by candlelight
He conn’d his lessons o’er,
And every morn with the herdsman’s horn
He rose and practised more.
|
| learn to
speak with
fluency,
| Full soon he thought himself well taught,
And then began to chatter:
And the careful dame, his mother, came
To see what was the matter.
|
| plausibility,
|
Like Miller Peel he smiled a deal,
And cull’d the fairest diction;
And look’d quite true though well he knew
That every word was fiction.
|
and grimace,
so as to satisfy
himself,—
|
Then to his nose he raised his toes,
And gravely look’d askew;
And thought himself a clever elf:—
And his mother thought so too.
|
| and his mother,
| “Caw, caw!” quoth she; “he sure must be
An orator or poet:
I’ll have him sent to Parliament,
That all the world may know it.”
|
| —but not the
Commons
of England.
| But though he shone so much alone,
And made his mother stare,
“The Members” swore he was a bore,
And had no business there.
|
| Yet there he is, and there I wis,
He’s likely still to be;
As, should you call at Stephen’s hall,
Yourself may chance to see.
|
| Fortune
puffeth up
the heart, |
A MILK-WHITE pigeon (records state)
Was wedded to a milk-white mate:
Nor envied prince nor potentate
This dainty dove,
While crouching to her lord she sate,
And coo’d her love.
|
| to judge
others. |
Indulged in all her heart’s desire
She felt no spark of lawless fire;
So plumed herself throughout the shire
A pattern wife:
And chid dame Partlet, as in ire,
For her loose life.
|
| A scandal to our sex, I vow,
Those cackling ladies of the mow!
Or black, or red, or high, or low,
They have no care;
So he’s a Cock—’tis quite enow
For welcome there!
|
| Dame Partlet heard, but felt no shame;
And let alone the vaunty dame,
To nurse her pride of wedded fame;
Herself content
That conscience whisper’d her no blame
Of evil bent.
|
| A shot!—the dove—she knew the sound!
Her milk-white mate has ta’en a wound:
He languishes upon the ground:
His swimming eyes
Heed not his comrades hovering round:
He gasps—he dies.
|
|
Altered circumstances
| Oh! what can stint a widow’s grief!
Our pattern wife defied relief:
No grain pick’d she, no sprouting leaf,
—As folks could see:
A pattern widow (to be brief)
She fain would be.
|
| So trimly prinn’d she sat alone,
And lean’d her breast against a stone,
As one for ever woe-begone;
And would not coo:
No wonder that a suitor soon
Came down to woo.
|
| A vulgar bluerock by my fay!
Without the gentle pouting way
Of him that died the other day:
Alas! he’s gone!
And sore it is for one to stay,
And live alone!
|
|
induce altered
feelings. | This bluerock press’d his suit so close,
Now strutting up upon his toes,
Now whispering something nose to nose,—
Our milk-white dove
Crouch’d to him, as the story goes,
And coo’d her love.
|
| Few can afford
to indulge
a fine
taste, though
many may
have it.
| Dame Partlet eyed the scene askaunt,
And spake:—The pamper’d few may vaunt
Their dainty taste o’er such as want;
But coarser bread
Is good enough to one who can’t
Get fine instead.
|
