_fancy_ is about;
So pray now tell me more.

BROTHER

Sister, I think 'twere quite as well
That you should find it out;
So think the matter o'er.

SISTER

It's what comes in our heads when we
Play at "Let's make believe,"
And when we play at "Guessing."

BROTHER

And I have heard it said to be
A talent often makes us grieve,
And sometimes proves a blessing.

ANGER

Anger in its time and place
May assume a kind of grace.
It must have some reason in it,
And not last beyond a minute.
If to further lengths it go,
It does into malice grow.
'Tis the difference that we see
'Twixt the Serpent and the Bee.
If the latter you provoke,
It inflicts a hasty stroke,
Puts you to some little pain,
But it _never stings again_.
Close in tufted bush or brake
Lurks the poison-swelled snake,
Nursing up his cherish'd wrath.
In the purlieus of his path,
In the cold, or in the warm,
Mean him good, or mean him harm,
Whensoever fate may bring you,
The vile snake will _always sting you_.

BLINDNESS

In a stage-coach, where late I chanc'd to be,
A little quiet girl my notice caught;
I saw she look'd at nothing by the way,
Her mind seem'd busy on some childish thought.

I with an old man's courtesy address'd
The child, and call'd her pretty dark-eyed maid
And bid her turn those pretty eyes and see
The wide extended prospect. "Sir," she said,

"I cannot see the prospect, I am blind."
Never did tongue of child utter a sound
So mournful, as her words fell on my ear.
Her mother then related how she found

Her child was sightless. On a fine bright day
She saw her lay her needlework aside,
And, as on such occasions mothers will,
For leaving off her work began to chide.

"I'll do it when 'tis day-light, if you please;
I cannot work, Mamma, now it is night."
The sun shone bright upon her when she spoke,
And yet her eyes receiv'd no ray of light.

THE MIMIC HARLEQUIN

"I'll _make believe_, and fancy something strange:
I will suppose I have the power to change
And make all things unlike to what they were,
To jump through windows and fly through the air,
And quite confound all places and all times,
Like Harlequins we see in Pantomimes.
These thread-papers my wooden sword must be,
Nothing more like one I at present see.
And now all round this drawing-room I'll range