For having just dined,
He for cheese felt inclined,
So he went and sat under the bough.

She was cunning, he knew,
But so was he too,
And with flattery adapted his plan;
For he knew if she'd speak,
It must fall from her beak,
So, bowing politely, began.

"'T is a very fine day"
(Not a word did she say):
"The wind, I believe, ma'am, is south:
A fine harvest for peas:"
He then looked at the cheese,
But the crow did not open her mouth.

Sly Reynard, not tired,
Her plumage admired,
"How charming! how brilliant its hue!
The voice must be fine,
Of a bird so divine,
Ah, let me just hear it, pray do.

"Believe me, I long
To hear a sweet song!"
The silly crow foolishly tries:
She scarce gave one squall,
When the cheese she let fall,
And the fox ran away with the prize.

MORAL

Ye innocent fair,
Of coxcombs beware,
To flattery never give ear;
Try well each pretense,
And keep to plain sense,
And then you have little to fear.

LITTLE B. (TAYLOR?)

* * * * *

THE USE OF FLOWERS

God might have bade the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,
The oak tree and the cedar tree,
Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough
For every want of ours,
For luxury, medicine, and toil,
And yet have had no flowers.

The ore within the mountain mine
Requireth none to grow;
Nor doth it need the lotus flower
To make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain,
The nightly dews might fall,
And the herb that keepeth life in man
Might yet have drunk them all.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made,
All dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night,--

Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountain high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passes by?

Our outward life requires them not,
Then wherefore had they birth?--
To minister delight to man,
To beautify the earth;

To comfort man, to whisper hope
Whene'er his faith is dim;
For Whoso careth for the flowers
Will much more care for him.

MARY HOWITT

* * * * *

CONTENTED JOHN

One honest John Tomkins, a hedger and ditcher,
Alth