But we picked him up
And we brushed him down,
And he rated the pup
With a dreadful frown;
And then he laughed and he went and hugged her,
Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her,
And so, with a sister's hand to guide him,
Continued his march with the dog beside him.
And soon he waggles his way upstairs--
He does it alone, though he finds it steep.
He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers,
And he condescends
To admit his friends
To a levee before he goes to sleep.
He thrones it there
With a battered bear
And a tattered monkey to form his Court,
And, having come to the end of day,
Conceives that this is the time for play
And every possible kind of sport.
But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time,
He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme,
And on the bed
Droops his curly round head,
Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content
Over a day so well, so proudly spent,
Resigned at last to listen and obey,
And so begins to breathe his quiet night away.
THE SPARROW
Let others from the feathered brood
Which through the garden seeks its food
Pick out for a commending word
Each one his own peculiar bird;
Hail the plump tit, or fitly sing
The finch's crest and flashing wing;
Exalt the rook's black satin dress-coat,
The thrush's speckled fancy waistcoat;
Or praise the robin, meek, but sly,
For breast and tail and friendly eye--
These have their place within my heart;
The sparrow owns the larger part,
And, for no virtues, rules in it,
My reckless cheerful favourite!
Friend sparrow, let the world contemn
Your ways and make a mock of them,
And dub you, if it has a mind,
Low, quarrelsome, and unrefined;
And let it, if it will, pursue
With harsh abuse the troops of you
Who through the orchard and the field
Their busy bills in mischief wield;
Who strip the tilth and bare the tree,
And make the gardener's face to be
Expressive of the words he could,
But must not, utter, though he would
(For gardeners still, where'er they go,
Whate'er they do, in weal or woe,
Through every chance of life retain
Their ancient Puritanic strain;
Tried by the weather they control
Each day their angry human soul,
And, by the sparrow teased, may tear
Their careworn locks, but never swear).
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