Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

The buckler of Integrity

Throw broadly o'er thy breast; Thy helmet let bright Honour be, And Truth thy stainless crest.

And be thy right-hand weapon, boy,
A calm inquiring mind,
Where prejudice's dull alloy

Foes seek in vain to find.

Let kind and gentle Courtesy
Be burnish to thy mail;

'Twill turn full many a stroke from thee, When rougher arms would fail.

Accoutred thus, go forth in joy,
While rings thy battle-cheer;
On-on-fear God, my gallant boy,
But know no other fear!

THE THIEF.

WHY should I deprive my neighbour
Of his goods against his will?
Hands were made for honest labour,
Not to plunder or to steal.

'Tis a foolish self-deceiving,
By such tricks to hope for gain:
All that's ever got by thieving,

Turns to sorrow, shame, and pain.

Have not Eve and Adam taught us
Their sad profit to compute;
To what dismal state they brought us,
When they stole forbidden fruit?

Oft we see a young beginner
Practise little pilfering ways,

Till grown up a hardened sinner,
Then the gallows ends his days.

Theft will not be always hidden,
Though we fancy none can spy:
When we take a thing forbidden,
God beholds it with his eye.

Guard my heart, oh God of heaven,
Lest I covet what's not mine:
Lest I take what is not given,
Guard my heart and hands from sin.

-ISAAC WATTS.

THE OLD MAN AND THE CARRION CROW.

BY MARY HOWITT.

THERE was a man, and his name was Jack,
Crabbed and lean, and his looks were black—
His temper was sour, his thoughts were bad;
His heart was hard when he was a lad.
And now he followed a dismal trade,

Old horses he bought, and killed, and flayed,
Their flesh he sold for the dogs to eat:
You would not have liked this man to meet.
He lived in a low mud-house on a moor,
Without any garden before the door.

There was one little hovel behind, that stood
Where he used to do his work of blood;
I never could bear to see the place,

It was stained and darkened with many a trace;
A trace of what I will not tell-

And then there was such an unchristian smell!

Now this old man did come and go,

Through the wood that grew in the dell below;
It was scant a mile from his own door-stone,
Darksome and dense, and overgrown ;
And down in the dreariest nook of the wood,
A tall and splintered fir-tree stood;

Half way up, where the boughs outspread,
A carrion crow his nest had made,

Of sticks and reeds in the dark fir-tree,
Where lay his mate and his nestlings three ;
And whenever he saw the man come by,
"Dead horse! dead horse!" he was sure to cry,
"Croak, croak!" If he went or came,
The cry of the crow was just the same.

Jack looked up as grim as could be,

And says,

"What's my trade to the like of thee!" "Dead horse! dead horse! croak, croak! croak, croak!" As plain as words to his ear it spoke.

Old Jack stooped down, and picked up a stone,

A stout, thick stick, and dry cow's bone,

And one and the other all three did throw,
So angry was he at the carrion crow;

But none of the three reached him or his nest,
Where his three young crows lay warm at rest;
And "Croak, croak! dead horse! croak, croak!"
In his solemn way again he spoke;

Old Jack was angry as he could be,

And says he, "On the morrow I'll fell thy tree-
I'll teach thee, old fellow, to rail at me!"
As soon as 'twas light, if there you had been,
Old Jack at his work you might have seen;
I would you'd been there to see old Jack,
And to hear the strokes as they came
thwack!"

"thwack!

And then you'd have seen how the croaking bird
Flew round as the axe's strokes he heard,
Flew round as he saw the shaking blow,
That came to his nest from the root below.

One after the other, stroke upon

stroke;

"Thwack! thwack!" said the axe; said the crow,

"Croak! croak!"

Old Jack looked up with a leer in his eye,

And I'll hew it down!" says he, "by and by!
I'll teach thee to rail, my old fellow, at me!"

So he spit on his hands, and says, "Have at the tree!” "Thwack!" says the axe, as the bark it clove;

"Thwack!" as into the wood it drove;
"Croak!" says the crow in great dismay,
"Croak!" as he slowly flew away.

Flap, flap went his wings over hedge and ditch,
Till he came to a field of burning twitch;
The boy with a lighted lantern there,

As he stood on the furrow brown and bare,
He saw the old crow hop hither and thither,
Then fly with a burning sod somewhither.

Away flew the crow to the house on the moor,
A poor
old horse was tied to the door;
The burning sod on the roof he dropped,
Then upon the chimney-stone he hopped,
And down he peeped, that he might see
How many there were in family-

« ПредишнаНапред »