Children's Literature Part 120

"The one thing I regret," he said, "Is that it cannot speak!"

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the 'bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus.

"If this should stay to dine," he said, "There won't be much for us!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo That worked a coffee-mill; He looked again, and found it was A Vegetable-Pill.

"Were I to swallow this," he said, "I should be very ill."

He thought he saw a Coach and Four That stood beside his bed: He looked again, and found it was A Bear without a Head.

"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!

It's waiting to be fed!"

He thought he saw an Albatross That fluttered round the Lamp: He looked again, and found it was A Penny Postage-Stamp.

"You'd best be getting home," he said: "The nights are very damp!"

He thought he saw a Garden Door That opened with a key: He looked again, and found it was A Double-Rule-of-Three: "And all its mystery," he said, "Is clear as day to me!"

He thought he saw an Argument That proved he was the Pope: He looked again, and found it was A Bar of Mottled Soap.

"A fact so dread," he faintly said, "Extinguishes all hope!"

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Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was an English minister and the writer of many hymns still included in our hymn books. He had a notion that verse might be used as a means of religious and ethical instruction for children, and wrote some poems as ill.u.s.trations of his theory so that they might suggest to better poets how to carry out the idea. But Watts did this work so well that two or three of his poems and several of his stanzas have become common possessions.

They are dominated, of course, by the heavy didactic moralizing, but are all so genuine and true that young readers feel their force and enjoy them.

AGAINST IDLENESS AND MISCHIEF

ISAAC WATTS

How doth the little busy bee Improve each s.h.i.+ning hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell, How neat she spreads the wax!

And labors hard to store it well With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill, I would be busy too; For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play, Let my first years be past, That I may give for every day Some good account at last.

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FAMOUS Pa.s.sAGES FROM DOCTOR WATTS

O 'tis a lovely thing for youth To walk betimes in wisdom's way; To fear a lie, to speak the truth, That we may trust to all they say.

But liars we can never trust, Though they should speak the thing that's true; And he that does one fault at first, And lies to hide it, makes it two.

(From "Against Lying")

Whatever brawls disturb the street, There should be peace at home; Where sisters dwell and brothers meet, Quarrels should never come.

Birds in their little nests agree: And 'tis a shameful sight, When children of one family Fall out, and chide, and fight.

(From "Love between Brothers and Sisters")

How proud we are! how fond to show Our clothes, and call them rich and new!

When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore That very clothing long before.

The tulip and the b.u.t.terfly Appear in gayer coats than I; Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.

Then will I set my heart to find Inward adornings of the mind; Knowledge and virtue, truth and grace, These are the robes of richest dress.

(From "Against Pride in Clothes")

Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For G.o.d hath made them so; Let bears and lions growl and fight, For 'tis their nature to.

But, children, you should never let Such angry pa.s.sions rise; Your little hands were never made To tear each other's eyes.

(From "Against Quarreling and Fighting")

Most of the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) is within the range of children's interests and comprehension. Three poems are given here, "The Skeleton in Armor," as representative of Longfellow's large group of narrative poems, "The Day Is Done," as an expression of the value of poetry in everyday life, and "The Psalm of Life," as the finest and most popular example of his hortatory poems.

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"The Skeleton in Armor" is one of Longfellow's first and best American art ballads. In Newport, Rhode Island, is an old stone tower known as the "Round Tower," which some people think was built by the Northmen, though it probably was not. In 1836 workmen unearthed a strange skeleton at Fall River, Ma.s.sachusetts.

It was wrapped in bark and coa.r.s.e cloth. On the breast was a plate of bra.s.s, and around the waist was a belt of bra.s.s tubes. Apparently it was not the skeleton of an Indian, and people supposed it might have been that of one of the old Nors.e.m.e.n. Longfellow used these two historic facts as a basis for the plot of his poem, which he wrote in 1840.

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me!

Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when the Northern skies Gleam in December; And, like the water's flow Under December's snow, Came a dull voice of woe From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking old!

My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No Saga taught thee!

Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehea.r.s.e, Else dread a dead man's curse!