is is my birthday, do you know?
Once I was four, that's long ago;
Once I was three, and two, and one,
Only a baby that could not run.
Now I am five, so old and so strong,
I could run races all the day long!
And I mean to grow bigger, and stronger, and older,
Some day perhaps I shall be a brave soldier.
I think I'm the happiest boy alive!
Oh, wouldn't you like to be me--now I'm five?

GRACE FOR A LITTLE CHILD

Here a little child I stand,
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all.

"I do not like to go to bed,"
Sleepy little Harry said;
"Go, naughty Betty, go away,
I will not come at all, I say!"

Oh, what a silly little fellow,
I should be quite ashamed to tell her;
Then Betty, you must come and carry
This very foolish little Harry.

The little birds are better taught,
They go to roosting when they ought;
And all the ducks and fowls, you know,
They went to bed an hour ago.

The little beggar in the street,
Who wanders with his naked feet,
And has no where to lay his head,
Oh, he'd be glad to go to bed.

My child, when we were children,
Two children little and gay,
We crept into the hen-roost,
And hid behind the hay.

We crowed as doth the cock crow,
When people passed that road,
Cried "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
They thought the cock had crowed.

The chests that lay in the court
We papered and made so clean,
And dwelt therein together--
We thought them fit for a queen.

Oft came our neighbour's old cat,
With us an hour to spend;
We made her curtseys and bows,
And compliments without end.

There was one little Jim,
'Tis reported of him,
And must be to his lasting disgrace--
That he never was seen
With his hands at all clean,
Nor yet ever clean was his face.

His friends were much hurt
To see so much dirt,
And often they made him quite clean;
But all was in vain,
He was dirty again,
And not at all fit to be seen.

When to wash he was sent,
He reluctantly went
With water to splash himself o'er;
But he seldom was seen
To have washed himself clean,
And often looked worse than before.

The idle and ba