(He's got a knife!)

Thou enviable being!

THE LOST HEIR.

"O where, and O where

Is my bonnie laddie gone?"-OLD SONG.
ONE day, as I was going by

That part of Holborn christened High,
I heard a loud and sudden cry
That chilled my very blood;
And lo! from out a dirty alley,
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,
I saw a crazy woman sally,

Bedaubed with grease and mud.

She turned her East, she turned her West,
Staring like Pythoness possest,

With streaming hair and heaving breast,

As one stark mad with grief.

"O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild!

Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child?

Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way

A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay.

I am all in a quiver- get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab! You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young

drab.

The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt-pies.

I wonder he left the court, where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys. When his Father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one,

Play on, play on,

My elfin John !

Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, —
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!)
With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down,
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk,
With many a lamb-like frisk!

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose !

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !)

Balmy and breathing music like the south,
(He really brings my heart into my mouth!)
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove;
(I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write unless he's sent above.)

THOMAS HOOD.

lost; and the beef and the inguns not done!

La bless you, good folks, mind your own concarns, and don't be making a mob in the street;

O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you, in your beat?

Do, good people, move on! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs; Saints forbid but he's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes by the priggs;

He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair;

And his trousers considering not very much

patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair.

Why, there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin !

rest;

But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast.

He'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sewed in, and not quite so much jagged at

the brim.

With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him.

And then he has got such dear winning ways but 0, I never, never shall see him no more !

O dear to think of losing him just after nussing him back from death's door!

Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny! And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many.

And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all, and, drat him! made a seize of our hog.

It's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown,

And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town. Billy-where are you, Billy, I say? come, Billy, come home, to your best of Mothers! I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers.

Or maybe he's stole by some chimbly-sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues and what not,

And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketched, and the chimbly's red hot.

O, I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin' eyes on his face.

For he's my darlin' of darlin's, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me drop stone dead on the place.

I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and would n't I hug him and kiss him!

Lawk! I never knew what a precious he was but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him.

his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin!

THOMAS HOOD.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

COME back, come back together,
All ye fancies of the past,
Ye days of April weather,
Ye shadows that are cast

By the haunted hours before!
Come back, come back, my Childhood;
Thou art summoned by a spell
From the green leaves of the wildwood,
From beside the charméd well,
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore!

The fields were covered over
With colors as she went;
Daisy, buttercup, and clover
Below her footsteps bent;

Summer shed its shining store;
She was happy as she pressed them
Beneath her little feet;

She plucked them and caressed them;
They were so very sweet,

They had never seemed so sweet before,
To Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.

How the heart of childhood dances
Upon a sunny day!

It has its own romances,

And a wide, wide world have they !
A world where Phantasie is king,
Made all of eager dreaming;
When once grown up and tall
Now is the time for scheming-
Then we shall do them all!
Do such pleasant fancies spring
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?

She seems like an ideal love,

The poetry of childhood shown, And yet loved with a real love, As if she were our own, A younger sister for the heart; Like the woodland pheasant, Her hair is brown and bright; And her smile is pleasant, With its rosy light. Never can the memory part

With Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.

Did the painter, dreaming
In a morning hour,
Catch the fairy seeming

Of this fairy flower?
Winning it with eager eyes
From the old enchanted stories,
Lingering with a long delight
On the unforgotten glories
Of the infant sight?

Giving us a sweet surprise
In Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?

Too long in the meadow staying,
Where the cowslip bends,
With the buttercups delaying
As with early friends,

Did the little maiden stay.
Sorrowful the tale for us;

We, too, loiter mid life's flowers,

A little while so glorious,

So soon lost in darker hours.

And to his little daughter Jane
Five hundred pounds in gold,
To be paid down on marriage-day,
Which might not be controlled;
But if the children chanced to die
Ere they to age should come,
Their uncle should possess their wealth,
For so the will did run.

"Now, brother," said the dying man,

"Look to my children dear;

Be good unto my boy and girl,
No friends else I have here."
With that bespake their mother dear,
"O brother kind," quoth she,

"You are the man must bring our babes To wealth or misery.

"And if you keep them carefully,

Then God will you reward;

If otherwise you seem to deal,

God will your deeds regard." With lips as cold as any stone

She kissed her children small: "God bless you both, my children dear," With that the tears did fall.

Their parents being dead and gone,

The children home he takes, And brings them home unto his house, And much of them he makes. He had not kept these pretty babes A twelvemonth and a day, But, for their wealth, he did devise To make them both away.

He bargained with two ruffians strong,
Which were of furious mood,

That they should take these children young,
And slay them in a wood.

He told his wife, and all he had

He did the children send
To be brought up in fair London,
With one that was his friend.

Away then went these pretty babes,
Rejoicing at that tide,
Rejoicing with a merry mind,

They should on cock-horse ride;
They prate and prattle pleasantly,
As they rode on the way,
To those that should their butchers be,
And work their lives' decay,

So that the pretty speech they had Made Murder's heart relent; And they that undertook the deed Full sore they did repent.

The fellow that did take in hand
These children for to kill
Was for a robber judged to die,

As was God's blessed will;
Who did confess the very truth,

The which is here expressed; Their uncle died while he, for debt, In prison long did rest.

You that executors be made,

And overseers eke,

Of children that be fatherless,
And infants mild and meek,
Take you example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Lest God with such-like misery
Your wicked minds requite.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

ANONYMOUS

A LITTLE in the doorway sitting,
The mother plied her busy knitting;
And her cheek so softly smiled,
You might be sure, although her gaze
Was on the meshes of the lace,
Yet her thoughts were with her child.

But when the boy had heard her voice,
As o'er her work she did rejoice,
His became silent altogether;
And slyly creeping by the wall,
He seized a single plume, let fall
By some wild bird of longest feather;
And, all a-tremble with his freak,
He touched her lightly on the cheek.

O, what a loveliness her eyes
Gather in that one moment's space,
While peeping round the post she spies
Her darling's laughing face!

O, mother's love is glorifying,
On the cheek like sunset lying;

In the eyes a moistened light,
Softer than the moon at night!

THOMAS BURBIDGE

THE GAMBOLS OF CHILDREN.

Down the dimpled greensward dancing
Bursts a flaxen-headed bevy,
Bud-lipt boys and girls advancing,

Love's irregular little levy.

Rows of liquid eyes in laughter,

How they glimmer, how they quiver ! Sparkling one another after,

Like bright ripples on a river.

Tipsy band of rubious faces,
Flushed with Joy's ethereal spirit,
Make your mocks and sly grimaces
At Love's self, and do not fear it.

GEORGE DARLEY.

UNDER MY WINDOW.

UNDER my window, under my window,
All in the Midsummer weather,
Three little girls with fluttering curls

Flit to and fro together :

There's Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, And Kate with her scarlet feather.

Under my window, under my window,
Leaning stealthily over,

Merry and clear, the voice I hear,

Of each glad-hearted rover.

Ah! sly little Kate, she steals my roses;
And Maud and Bell twine wreaths and posies,
As merry as bees in clover.

Under my window, under my window,
In the blue Midsummer weather,

Stealing slow, on a hushed tiptoe,

I catch them all together:

Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen,
And Maud with her mantle of silver-green,
And Kate with the scarlet feather.

Under my window, under my window,

And off through the orchard closes ; While Maud she flouts, and Bell she pouts, They scamper and drop their posies; But dear little Kate takes naught amiss, And leaps in my arms with a loving kiss, And I give her all my roses.

THOMAS WESTWOOD.

THE MOTHER'S HEART.

WHEN first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, My eldest born, first hope, and dearest treasure, My heart received thee with a joy beyond

All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure; Nor thought that any love again might be So deep and strong as that I felt for thee. Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy years, And natural piety that leaned to heaven; Wrung by a harsh word suddenly to tears,

Yet patient to rebuke when justly given; Obedient, easy to be reconciled,

And meekly cheerful; such wert thou, my child!

Not willing to be left - still by my side, Haunting my walks, while summer-day was dying;

Nor leaving in thy turn, but pleased to glide Through the dark room where I was sadly lying;

Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek,
Watch the dim eye, and kiss the fevered cheek.

O boy of such as thou are oftenest made
Earth's fragile idols; like a tender flower,
No strength in all thy freshness, prone to fade,
And bending weakly to the thunder-shower;
Still, round the loved, thy heart found force to
bind,

And clung, like woodbine shaken in the wind!