36 THE GREAT-GRANDFATHER. THE GREAT-GRANDFATHER. - Miss Lamb. MOTHER'S grandfather lives still, Though years lie on him like a load, His great-grandchildren on his knee. When we our parents have displeased, Our bad ones in the shade, are seen. His love's a line that 's long drawn out, His heart is oak, yet unto us It like the gentlest reed can bend. A fighting soldier he has been,- His talk is all of things long past, Of the famed year of forty-five, Of William, and Culloden's field. THE WIND IN A FROLIC. The deeds of this eventful age, 37 Which princes from their thrones have hurled, Can no more interest wake in him Than stories of another world. When I his length of days revolve, How like a strong tree he hath stood, Those patriarchs old before the flood. THE WIND IN A FROLIC. — William Howitt THE wind one morning sprang up from sleep, I'll make a commotion in every place!" So it swept with a bustle right through a great town, Shutters, and whisking, with merciless squalls, Then away to the fields it went blustering and humming, And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming. They all turned their backs and stood silently mute. 38 THE NORTHERN SEAS. Puffing the birds, as they sat on the spray, Of the beggar, and flutter his dirty rags. "T was so bold that it feared not to play its joke And it made them bow without more ado, Or it cracked their great branches through and through. Then it rushed like a monster o'er cottage and farm, Striking their inmates with sudden alarm; And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm. There were dames with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; But the wind had passed on, and had met in a ane With a schoolboy, who panted and struggled in vain, For it tossed him, and twirled him, then passed, and he stood With his hat in a pool, and his shoe in the mud. THE NORTHERN SEAS.-William Howitt. Up! up! let us a voyage take; Why sit we here at ease? Bound for the Northern Seas. THE NORTHERN SEAS. I long to see the Northern Lights, I long to see those icebergs vast, I long to hear the thundering crash And the echoes from a thousand cliffs, There shall we see the fierce white bear, And the spouting whales that to and fro There may we tread on depths of ice, And while the unsetting sun shines on We'll pass the shores of solemn pine, 39 40 THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. Up there shall start ten thousand wings, And there, in the wastes of the silent sky, We shall see far off to his lonely rock Then softly, softly will we tread THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. Now ponder well, you parents dear, In time brought forth to light: A gentleman of good account Whose wealth and riches did surmount Most men of his estate. Sore sick he was, and like to die, No love between these two was lost, In love they lived, in love they died, |