There's little Will, a five years child—
He is my youngest boy:
To look on eyes so fair and wild,
It is a very joy:—
He hath conversed with sun and shower,
And dwelt with every idle flower,
As fresh and gay as them.
He loiters with the briar rose,—
The blue-belles are his play-fellows,
That dance upon their slender stem.
And I have said, my little Will,
Why should not he continue still
A thing of Nature's rearing?
A thing beyond the world's control—
A living vegetable soul,—
No human sorrow fearing.
It were a blessed sight to see
That child become a Willow-tree,
His brother trees among.
He'd be four times as tall as me,
And live three times as long.
Catharine M. Fanshawe.
THE FAMOUS BALLAD OF THE JUBILEE CUP
You may lift me up in your arms, lad, and turn my face to the sun,
For a last look back at the dear old track where the Jubilee cup
was won;
And draw your chair to my side, lad—no, thank ye, I feel no pain—
For I'm going out with the tide, lad; but I'll tell you the tale
again.
I'm seventy-nine or nearly, and my head it has long turned gray,
But it all comes back as clearly as though it was yesterday—
The dust, and the bookies shouting around the clerk of the scales,
And the clerk of the course, and the nobs in force, and 'Is
'Ighness the Pr**ce of W*les.
'Twas a nine-hole thresh to wind'ard (but none of us cared for that),
With a straight run home to the service tee, and a finish along
the flat,
"Stiff?" ah, well you may say it! Spot barred, and at five stone
ten!
But at two and a bisque I'd ha' run the risk; for I was a
greenhorn then.
So we stripped to the B. Race signal, the old red swallowtail—
There was young Ben Bolt and the Portland Colt, and Aston Villa,
and Yale;
And W. G., and Steinitz, Leander and The Saint,
And the G*rm*n Emp*r*r's Meteor, a-looking as fresh as paint;
John Roberts (scratch), and Safety Match, The Lascar, and Lorna
Doone,
Oom Paul (a bye), and Romany Rye, and me upon Wooden Spoon;
And some of us cut for partners, and some of us strung for baulk,
And some of us tossed for stations—But there, what use to talk?