rdsworth

Poor Lucy Lake was overgrown,
But somewhat underbrained.
She did not know enough, I own,
To go in when it rained.

Yet Lucy was constrained to go;
Green bedding,--you infer.
Few people knew she died, but oh,
The difference to her!

Newton Mackintosh [1858-

JANE SMITH
After Wordsworth

I journeyed, on a winter's day,
Across the lonely wold;
No bird did sing upon the spray,
And it was very cold.

I had a coach with horses four,
Three white (though one was black),
And on they went the common o'er,
Nor swiftness did they lack.

A little girl ran by my side,
And she was pinched and thin.
"Oh, please, sir, do give me a ride!
I'm fetching mother's gin."

"Enter my coach, sweet child," said I,
"For you shall ride with me;
And I will get you your supply
Of mother's eau-de-vie."

The publican was stern and cold,
And said: "Her mother's score
Is writ, as you shall soon behold,
Behind the bar-room door!"

I blotted out the score with tears,
And paid the money down;
And took the maid of thirteen years
Back to her mother's town.

And though the past with surges wild
Fond memories may sever,
The vision of that happy child
Will leave my spirits never!

Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

FATHER WILLIAM
From "Alice in Wonderland"
After Southey

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;