I've read about a fine estate, George Robins knows the very spot, "Straight down the Crooked Lane, I've heard there is a Company Will take your smallest silver coin Of course the office door is mobb'd, 66 Straight down the Crooked Lane, "And all round the Square." I've heard about a pleasant land, But how shall I get there? "Straight down the Crooked Lane, "And all round the Square." 60. A WREN'S NEST. AMONG the dwellings framed by birds Hood. No door the tenement requires, So warm, so beautiful withal, And when for their abodes they seek An opportune recess, The hermit has no finer eye For shadowy quietness. These find, 'mid ivied abbey walls, There to the brooding bird her mate Or in sequestered lanes they build, But still, where general choice is good, There is a better and a best ; And, among fairest objects, some Are fairer than the rest. This, one of those small builders proved In a green covert, where from out The forehead of a pollard oak The leafy antlers sprout; For she who planned the mossy lodge, Had to a primrose looked for aid, High on the trunk's projecting brow, The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest, The treasure proudly did I show To some whose minds without disdain "Tis gone—a ruthless spoiler's prey, Just three days after, passing by The primrose for a veil had spread Concealed from friends who might disturb Thy quiet with no ill intent, Secure from evil eyes and hands On barbarous plunder bent, Rest, mother bird! and when thy young Think how ye prospered, thou and thine, Housed near the growing primrose tuft 61.. THE ROSE. Wordsworth. THE rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, To weep For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned,. And such, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, Might have bloomed with its owner awhile; And the tear, that is wiped with a little address, May be followed perhaps by a smile. Cowper. K 62. BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. Or Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day's renown When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark's crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone; By each gun the lighted brand In a bold determined hand, And the prince of all the land Like leviathans afloat, Lay their bulwarks on the brine; But the might of England flushed And her van the fleeter rushed O'er the deadly space between. "Hearts of Oak!" our captains cried, when each gun, From its adamantine lips, Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like the hurricane eclipse Of the sun! Again! again! again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back!— |