children

By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
and there are pets for the children but the lives that followed
courses of their own other than ours and older
have been migrating before us some are already
far on the way and yet Peter with his gaunt cheeks

A child need not be very clever
To learn that "Later, dear" means "Never."

Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play;
Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow:
And some are sung, and that was yesterday,
And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow.

Go forth; and if it be o'er stony way,
Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow:
And it was sweet, and that was yesterday,
And sweet is sweet, though purchased with sorrow.

Go, songs, and come not back from your far way:
And if men ask you why ye smile and sorrow,
Tell them ye grieve, for your hearts know Today,

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,

Children, you are very little,
And your bones are very brittle;
If you would grow great and stately,
You must try to walk sedately.
II
You must still be bright and quiet,
And content with simple diet;
And remain, through all bewild'ring,
Innocent and honest children.
III
Happy hearts and happy faces,
Happy play in grassy places--
That was how in ancient ages,
Children grew to kings and sages.
IV
But the unkind and the unruly,
And the sort who eat unduly,

The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet,
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last-year's store,
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnish'd well.

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great Barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.

"Lord God of Hosts," the people pray,
"Make strong our arms that we may slay
Our cursed foe and win the day."
"Lord God of Battles," cries the foe,
"Guide us to strike a bloody blow,
And lay the adversary low."
II
But brooding o'er the battle smother
Bewails the Lord: "Brother to brother,
Why must ye slaughter one another?
When will ye come to understand
My peace, and hand reach out to hand,
In every race, in every land?"
III
And yet, his weary words despite,
Went murderously on the fight,

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Glee—The great storm is over—
Four—have recovered the Land—
Forty—gone down together—
Into the boiling Sand—

Ring—for the Scant Salvation—
Toll—for the bonnie Souls—
Neighbor—and friend—and Bridegroom—
Spinning upon the Shoals—

How they will tell the Story—
When Winter shake the Door—
Till the Children urge—
But the Forty—
Did they—come back no more?

Then a softness—suffuse the Story—
And a silence—the Teller's eye—
And the Children—no further question—

Our Jimmy has gone for to live in a tent,
they have grafted him into the Army,
he finally puckered up courage and went,
when they grafted him into the Army.
I told them the child was too young, alas!
At the captains forequarters, they said he would pass,
they'd train him up well in the Infantry class,
so they grafted him into the Army.

Oh, Jimmy, farewell! Your brothers fell way down in Alabammy;
I though they would spare a lone widder's heir,
but they grafted him into the Army.

As the night was beginning to close in one rough September day
In the year of 1838, a steamer passed through the Fairway
Between the Farne Islands and the coast, on her passage northwards;
But the wind was against her, and the steamer laboured hard.

There she laboured in the heavy sea against both wind and tide,
Whilst a dense fog enveloped her on every side;
And the mighty billows made her timbers creak,
Until at last, unfortunately, she sprung a leak.

Then all hands rushed to the pumps, and wrought with might and main.