tread,
From your pretty feet to your pretty dress,
And up to your ruffled neck, oh, yes,
And on to your feathered head.

So go your way, my Lady Jane,
Till you come from Vanity-land again.

To A Little Girl Who Liked To Look In The Glass

Why is my silly girl so vain,
Looking in the glass again?
For the meekest flower of spring
Is a gayer little thing.

Is your merry eye so blue
As the violet, wet with dew?
Yet it loves the best to hide
By the hedge's shady side.

Is your bosom half so fair
As the modest lilies are?
Yet their little bells are hung
Bright and shady leaves among.

When your cheek the brightest glows,
Is it redder than the rose?
But its sweetest buds are seen
Almost hid with moss and green.

Little flowers that open gay,
Peeping forth at break of day,
In the garden, hedge, or plain,
Have more reason to be vain.

The Ragged Girl's Sunday

"Oh, dear Mamma, that little girl
Forgets this is the day
When children should be clean and neat,
And read and learn and pray!

Her face is dirty and her frock,
Holes in her stockings, see;
Her hair is such a fright, oh, dear!
How wicked she must be!

She's playing in the kennel dirt
With ragged girls and boys;
But I would not on Sunday touch
My clean and pretty toys.

I go to church, and sit so still,
I in the garden walk,
Or take my stool beside the fire,
And hear nice Sunday talk.

I read my bible, learn my hymns,
My catechism say;
That wicked little girl does not--
She only cares to play."

"Ah! hush that boasting tone, my love,
Repress self-glorying pride;
You can do nothing of yourself--
Friends all your actions guide."

Criminal Pride

Hark the rustle of a dress
Stiff with lavish costliness!
Here comes on whose cheek would flush
But to have her garment brush
'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin
Wove the weary 'broidery in,
Bending backward from her toil,
Lest her tears the silk might soil,
And in midnight's chill and murk,
Stitched her life into the work.
Little doth the wearer heed
Of the heart-break in the brede;
A hyena by her side
Skulks, down-looking--it is Pride.

J. R. Lowell

Foolish Fanny

Oh! Fanny was so vain a lass,
If she came near a looking-glass,
She'd stop right there for many a minute
To see how pretty