The Youths Coronal | Page 5

charged so heavily,?'Twas a dangerous thing to be?With so young a wight as he?Mindless of his mother.
Earnestly she warned her child?To forego a sport so wild;?While he, turning, frowned or smiled,?And away would sidle.?For, to give him short and long,?Harry had a head so strong,?In the right or in the wrong,?It was hard to bridle.
On his gunning madly bent,?Often in his clothes a rent?Told the reckless way he went,?Over hedge and brambles.?Homeward then would Harry slouch,?With his gun and empty pouch,?Looking like a scaramouch?Coming from his rambles.
Sometimes when he scaled a wall,?Headlong there to pitch and fall,?Ratling stones, and gun and all.?Down together tumbled.?Tray would bark to tell the news?Of his master with a bruise,?Hatless, and with grated shoes,?Lying flat and humbled!
Where he saw the bushes stirred,?Harry, sure of hare or bird,?Drew,--and at a flash was heard?Noise like little thunder.?When he ran his game to find,?Disappointment 'mazed his mind;--?Finding he'd but shot the wind,?Dumb he stood with wonder!
Over muddy pool or bog,?Not so nimble as his dog,?When he walked the plank or log,?There his balance losing,?Splash! he went--a rueful plight!?If his face before was white,?'Twas like morning turned to night,?Much against his choosing.
Now, like many a hasty one,?Whether quadruped or gun,?Or a mother's wayward son?Given to disaster,?Harry's gun was rather quick;?And it had a naughty trick,--?It would snap itself, and kick?Fiercely at its master.
So, this snappish habit grew?With a power for him to rue;?Just as all bad habits do?Grow, as age increases.?When, one day, with noise and smoke,?Over-charged, the barrel broke,?Harry's hand the mischief spoke--?It was blown to pieces!
Tray came crouching round, and growled,--?Saw the gore, and whined, and howled,?While his owner groaned and scowled,?And the blood was running.?With the horrors of his state,?And with anguish desperate,?Then poor Harry owned too late,?He was sick of gunning!
While his mother bent to mourn?As her froward son was borne,?With his hand all burnt and torn,?Faint and pale, before her,?Harry's pain must be endured,--?And the wound--it might be cured;?But, for fingers uninsured,?There was no restorer!
=The Pebble and the Acorn=
"I am a Pebble! I yield to none!"?Were the swelling words of a tiny stone,?"Nor time nor season can alter me;?I am abiding, while ages flee.?The pelting hail and the drizzling rain?Have tried to soften me, long, in vain;?And the dew has tenderly sought to melt,?Or touch my heart; but it was not felt.?There's none to tell you about my birth,?For I am as old as the big, round earth.?The children of men arise, and pass?Out of the world, like blades of grass;?And many foot that on me has trod?Is gone from sight, and under the sod!?I am a Pebble! but who art thou,?Rattling along from the restless bough?"
The Acorn was shocked at this rude salute,?And lay for a moment abashed and mute:?She never before had been so near?This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere;?And she felt for a time at loss to know?How to answer a thing so coarse and low.?But to give reproof of a nobler sort?Than the angry look, or the keen retort,?At length she said, in a gentle tone,?"Since it has happened that I am thrown,?From the lighter element where I grew,?Down to another, so hard and new,?And beside a personage so august,?Abased, I'll cover my head with dust,?And quick retire from the sight of one?Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,?Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel?Has ever subdued, or made to feel!"?And soon in the earth she sank away?From the cheerless spot where the Pebble lay.
But 'twas not long ere the soil was broke?By the jeering head of an infant oak!?As it arose, and its branches spread,?The Pebble looked up, and, wondering, said,?"Ah, modest Acorn! never to tell?What was enclosed in its simple shell;--?That the pride of the forest was folded up?In the narrow space of its little cup!--?And meekly to sink in the darksome earth,?Which proves that nothing could hide her worth!?And O, how many will tread on me,?To come and admire the beautiful tree,?Whose head is towering towards the sky,?Above such a worthless thing as I!?Useless and vain, a cumberer here,?Have I been idling from year to year.?But never, from this, shall a vaunting word?From the humbled Pebble again be heard,?Till something without me or within?Shall show the purpose for which I've been!"?The Pebble could ne'er its vow forget,?And it lies there wrapt in silence yet.
=The Grasshopper and the Ant=
"Ant, look at me!" a young grasshopper said,?As nimbly he sprang from his green, summer-bed,?"See how I'm going to skip over your head,?And could o'er a thousand like you!?Ant, by your motion alone, I should judge?That Nature ordained you a slave and a drudge,?For ever and ever to keep on the trudge,?And always find something to do.
"Oh! there is nothing like having our day--?Taking our pleasure and ease while we may--?Bathing ourselves in the bright, mellow ray?That comes