Part 6 (1/2)

THE OWL.

When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the c.o.c.k hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

LITTLE BILLEE.

”Little Billee,” by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), finds a place here because it carries a good lesson good-naturedly rendered. An accomplished teacher recommends it, and I recollect two young children in Chicago who sang it frequently for years without getting tired of it.

There were three sailors of Bristol city Who took a boat and went to sea.

But first with beef and captain's biscuits And pickled pork they loaded she.

There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy, And the youngest he was little Billee.

Now when they got so far as the Equator They'd nothing left but one split pea.

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, ”I am extremely hungaree.”

To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy, ”We've nothing left, us must eat we.”

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, ”With one another, we shouldn't agree!

There's little Bill, he's young and tender, We're old and tough, so let's eat he.”

”Oh! Billy, we're going to kill and eat you, So undo the b.u.t.ton of your chemie.”

When Bill received this information He used his pocket-handkerchie.

”First let me say my catechism, Which my poor mammy taught to me.”

”Make haste, make haste,” says guzzling Jimmy While Jack pulled out his snickersnee.

So Billy went up to the main-topgallant mast, And down he fell on his bended knee.

He scarce had come to the Twelfth Commandment When up he jumps, ”There's land I see.

”Jerusalem and Madagascar, And North and South Amerikee: There's the British flag a-riding at anchor, With Admiral Napier, K.C.B.”

So when they got aboard of the Admiral's He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee; But as for little Bill, he made him The Captain of a Seventy-three.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

THE b.u.t.tERFLY AND THE BEE.

”The b.u.t.terfly and the Bee,” by William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850), is recommended by some school-girls. It carries a lesson in favour of the worker.

Methought I heard a b.u.t.terfly Say to a labouring bee: ”Thou hast no colours of the sky On painted wings like me.”

”Poor child of vanity! those dyes, And colours bright and rare,”

With mild reproof, the bee replies, ”Are all beneath my care.

”Content I toil from morn to eve, And scorning idleness, To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave The vanity of dress.”