Verses for Children Part 8

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Ah!

There you are!

I was certain I heard a strange voice from afar.

Mamma calls me a pup, but I'm wiser than she; One ear c.o.c.ked and I hear, half an eye and I see; Wide-awake though I doze, not a thing escapes me.

Yes!

Let me guess: It's the stable-boy's hiss as he wisps down Black Bess.

It sounds like a kettle beginning to sing, Or a bee on a pane, or a moth on the wing, Or my master's peg-top, just let loose from the string.

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Well!

Now I smell, I don't know who you are, and I'm puzzled to tell.

You look like a fly dressed in very gay clothes, But I blush to have troubled my mid-day repose For a creature not worth half a twitch of my nose.

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How now?

Bow, wow, wow!

The insect imagines we're playing, I vow!

If I pat you, I promise you'll find it too hard.

Be off! when a watch-dog like me is on guard, Big or little, no stranger's allowed in the yard.

Eh?

"Come away!"

My dear little master, is that what you say?

I am greatly obliged for your kindness and cares, But I really can manage my own small affairs, And banish intruders who give themselves airs.

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Snap!

Yap! yap! yap!

You defy me?--you pigmy, you insolent sc.r.a.p!

What!--this to my teeth, that have worried a score Of the biggest rats bred in the granary floor!

Come on, and be swallowed! I spare you no more!

Help!

Yelp! yelp! yelp!

Little master, pray save an unfortunate whelp, Who began the attack, but is now in retreat, Having shown all his teeth, just escapes on his feet, And is trusting to you to make safety complete.

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Oh!

Let me go!

My poor eye! my poor ear! my poor tail! my poor toe!

Pray excuse my remarks, for I meant no such thing.

Don't trouble to come--oh, the brute's on the wing!

I'd no notion, I'm sure, there were flies that could sting.

Dear me!

I can't see.

My nose burns, my limbs shake, I'm as ill as can be.

I was never in such an undignified plight.

Mamma told me, and now I suppose she was right; One should know what one's after before one shows fight.

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CANADA HOME.

Some Homes are where flowers for ever blow, The sun s.h.i.+ning hotly the whole year round; But our Home glistens with six months of snow, Where frost without wind heightens every sound.

And Home is Home wherever it is, When we're all together and nothing amiss.

Yet w.i.l.l.y is old enough to recall A Home forgotten by Eily and me; He says that we left it five years since last Fall, And came sailing, sailing, right over the sea.

But Home is Home wherever it is, When we're all together and nothing amiss.

Our other Home was for ever green, A green, green isle in a blue, blue sea, With sweet flowers such as we never have seen; And w.i.l.l.y tells all this to Eily and me.

But Home is Home wherever it is, When we're all together and nothing amiss.

He says, "What fine fun when we all go back!"

But Canada Home is very good fun When Pat's little sled flies along the smooth track, Or spills in the snowdrift that s.h.i.+nes in the sun.

For Home is Home wherever it is, When we're all together and nothing amiss.

Some day I should dearly love, it is true, To sail to the old Home over the sea; But only if Father and Mother went too, With w.i.l.l.y and Patrick and Eily and me.

For Home is Home wherever it is, When we're all together and nothing amiss.

THE POET AND THE BROOK.

A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.

A little Brook, that babbled under gra.s.s, Once saw a Poet pa.s.s-- A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes, Who went his weary way with woeful sighs.

And on another time, This Brook did hear that Poet read his rueful rhyme.

Now in the poem that he read, This Poet said-- "Oh! little Brook that babblest under gra.s.s!

(_Ah me! Alack! Ah, well-a-day! Alas!_) Say, are you what you seem?

Or is your life, like other lives, a dream?

What time your babbling mocks my mortal moods, Fair Naad of the stream!

And are you, in good sooth, Could purblind poesy perceive the truth, A water-sprite, Who sometimes, for man's dangerous delight, Puts on a human form and face, To wear them with a superhuman grace?

"When this poor Poet turns his bending back, (_Ah me! Ah, well-a-day! Alas! Alack!_) Say, shall you rise from out your gra.s.sy bed, With wreathed forget-me-nots about your head, And sing and play, And wile some wandering wight out of his way, To lead him with your witcheries astray?