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THE TOWN CHILD AND COUNTRY CHILD.

363

Lo! where thy fisher-born, abstracted takes,
With his fixed eyes, the trout he cannot see;
Lo! starting from his earnest dream, he wakes!
While our glad Fanny, with raised foot and knee,
Bears down at Noe's side the bloom-bowed hawthorn tree.

Dear children! when the flowers are full of bees;
When the sun-touched blossoms shed their fragrant snow;
When song speaks like a spirit, from the trees
Whose kindled greenness hath a golden glow;
When, clear as music, rill and river flow,
With trembling hues, all changeful, tinted o'er
By that bright pencil which good spirits know
Alike in earth and heaven-'tis sweet once more,
Above the sky-tinged hills to see the storm-bird soar.

'Tis passing sweet to wander, free as air,
Blithe truants in the bright and breeze-blessed day,
Far from the town-where stoop the sons of care
O'er plains of mischief, till their souls turn gray,
And dry as dust, and dead-alive are they—
Of all self-buried things the most unblessed:
O morn! to them no blissful tribute pay!
O night's long-courted slumbers! bring no rest
To men who laud man's foes, and deem the basest best.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

BORN, 1784; DIED, 1842.

THE TOWN CHILD AND COUNTRY CHILD,

CHILD of the country! free as air
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair;
Born, like the lily, where the dew
Lies odorous when the day is new;

Fed 'mid the May flowers like the bee,
Nurs'd to sweet music on the knee,
Lull'd in the breast to that sweet tune,
Which winds make 'mong the woods of June:
I sing of thee;-'tis sweet to sing

Of such a fair and gladsome thing.

Child of the town! for thee I sigh;
A gilded roof's thy golden sky,
A carpet is thy daisied sod,

A narrow street thy boundless wood,
Thy rushing deer's the clattering tramp
Of watchmen, thy best light's a lamp,—
Through smoke, and not through trellised vines
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines:
I sing of thee in sadness; where
Else is wreck wrought in aught so fair.

Child of the country! thy small feet
Tread on strawberries red and sweet:
With thee I wander forth to see
The flowers which most delight the bee;
The bush o'er which the throstle sung
In April while she nursed her young;
The dew beneath the sloe-thorn, where
She bred her twins the timorous hare;
The knoll, wrought o'er with wild blue-bells,
Where brown bees build their balmy cells;
The greenwood stream, the shady pool,
Where trouts leap when the day is cool;
The shilfa's nest that seems to be
A portion of the sheltering tree,—
And other marvels which my verse
Can find no language to rehearse.

Child of the town! for thee, alas!
Glad nature spreads nor flowers nor grass;

THE TOWN CHILD AND COUNTRY CHILD.

365

Birds build no nests, nor in the sun
Glad streams come singing as they run:
A Maypole is thy blossom'd tree,
A beetle is thy murmuring bee;
Thy bird is caged, thy dove is where
The poulterer dwells, beside the hare;
Thy fruit is plucked, and by the pound
Hawk'd clamorous o'er the city round:
No roses, twin-born on the stalk,
Perfume thee in thy evening walk;
No voice of birds,--but to thee comes
The mingled din of cars and drums,
And startling cries, such as are rife
When wine and wassail waken strife.

Child of the country! on the lawn
I see thee like the bounding fawn,
Blithe as the bird which tries its wing
The first time on the wings of spring;
Bright as the sun when from the cloud
He comes as cocks are crowing loud;
Now running, shouting, 'mid sunbeams,
Now groping trouts in lucid streams,
Now spinning like a mill-wheel round,
Now hunting echo's empty sound,
Now climbing up some old tall tree--
For climbing's sake-'tis sweet to thee
To sit where birds can sit alone,

Or share with thee thy venturous throne.

Child of the town and bustling street,
What woes and snares await thy feet;
Thy paths are paved for five log miles,
Thy groves and hills are peak. and tiles;
Thy fragrant air is yon thick s.noke,
Which shrouds thee like a mourning cloak;
And thou art cabin'd and confined,

At once from sun, and dew, and wind,

Or set thy tottering feet but on

Thy lengthened walks of slippery stone,
The coachman there careering reels,
With goaded steeds and maddening wheels;
And Commerce pours each prosing son
In pelf's pursuit and hollos "Run :"
While flush'd with wine, and stung at play,
Men rush from darkness into day.

The stream's too strong for thy small bark;
There nought can sail, save what is stark.
Fly from the town, sweet child! for health
Is happiness, and strength, and wealth.
There is a lesson in each flower,

A story in each stream and bower;
On every herb o'er which you tread,
Are written words which, rightly read,
Will lead you, from earth's fragrant sod,
To hope, and holiness, and God.

THE MOTHER'S CALL.

COME, Sweet ones, come to the fields with me,
I hear the hum of the honey bee,
I hear the call of the gray cuckoo,
I hear the note of the shrill curlew;
I hear the cry of the hunting hawk,

The sound of the dove in our 'customed walk,
The song of the lark, the tongue of the rill,
The shepherds' shout on the pasture hill.
My sweet ones, all come forth and play,
The air is balm, and I smell new hay;
Come, breathe of the flowers, and see how neat
The milkmaid trips on her scented feet;
Young folks come forth all joy, and run
Abroad as bright as beams of the sun;
Old men step out with a sadder grace,
And matrons come with a graver pace.

367

FEMALE PICTURE OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

The smoke streams up, and the air is rife
With joy, and all is light and life;

From east to west there's not a stain
In all the sky, and the birds are fain,
And the beasts are glad, while man in song
Breaks out, for rain has lorded long,
And earth has drank more than her meed,
To fill her flowers and nurse her seed.

Now, now ye come, my little ones all,

As the young doves come at their mother's call;
One run to yon tall foxglove, and see
At his breakfast of balm the golden bee;
Another go hunt from bud to bloom

The worm that flies with a painted plume,

Or see the doe solicitous lead

Her twin fawns forth to the odorous mead,
Or mark the nestlings newly flown,

With their tender wings and their crests of down.

But stay, my children. Ere ye run,
Who made the sky and yon glorious sun?
Who framed the earth, and strewed it sweet
With flowers, and set it 'neath mankind's feet?
'Twas ONE in heaven. Kneel down, and lay
Your white foreheads to the grass, and pray;
And render HIM praise, and seem to be
Pure, good, and modest-then come with me.

JOANNA BAILLIE.
BORN, 1762; DIED, 1851.

FEMALE PICTURE OF A COUNTRY LIFE.
EVEN now methinks

Each little cottage of my native vale

Swells out its earthen sides, upheaves its roof,
Like to a hillock moved by labouring mole,

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