Eddying round and round they sink In his wavering parachute. - But the Kitten, how she starts, In her upward eye of fire! Now she meets the coming prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again : Now she works with three or four, Of the countless living things, All have laid their mirth aside. Where is he, that giddy sprite, Blue-cap, with his colors bright, Who was blest as bird could be, Feeding in the apple-tree; Made such wanton spoil and rout, Turning blossoms inside out; Hung-head pointing towards the groundFluttered, perched, into a round Bound himself, and then unbound; Lithest, gaudiest Harlequin; Prettiest Tumbler ever seen; Light of heart and light of limb; Lambs, that through the mountains went Frisking, bleating merriment, They are sobered by this time. If you look to vale or hill, Yet, whate'er enjoyments dwell Of the silent heart which Nature That your transports are not mine, Will walk through life in such a way - Pleased by any random toy; By a kitten's busy joy, Or an infant's laughing eye I would fare like that or this, Even from things by sorrow wrought, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. "COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON." LITTLE Four Years, little Two Years, Cheerful looks and words are very Four Years is of Two the double, So that Two Years, when she 's older, ROSSITER W. RAYMOND. Little epitome of man! Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt-pies. (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning I wonder he left the court, where he was better life, (He's got a knife !) Thou enviable being! off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten, by way of toys. No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, When his Father comes home, and he always Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, — (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk! comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and the inguns not done! La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don't be making a mob in the street; (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across Thou pretty opening rose ! my poor little boy, have you, in your beat? (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your Do, good people, move on! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs; Saints forbid! but he's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes by the prigs; He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair; And his trousers considering not very much patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. His shirt, it's very lucky I'd got washing in the tub, or that might have gone with the rest; But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast. He'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sewed in, and not quite so much jagged at the brim; With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him. And then he has got such dear winning ways but O, I never, never shall see him no more! O dear! to think of losing him just after nussing him back from death's door! Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny; "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was go stick stark staring wild! Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child? Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. I am all in a quiver- get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab! You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab! The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many. And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all, and, drat him! made a seize of our hog. It's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown, And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town. Billy-where are you, Billy, I say? come, Billy, come home, to your best of Mothers! I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. |