BY

With fuch friends as now I fee;
With a daughter fuch as thee
Sitting fondly on my knee-

Love and Thought,
Heart and Intellect combined,
Fair and strong, in form as mind,
As to prove me not defigned
To be naught!

And those boys with noble heads
(Though they're gaping for their beds)
With the healthy whites and reds
Of their cheeks--

Fruits from Fortune's garden wall
I ne'er hoped fhe would let fall
In my lap - though verfed in all
Of her freaks.

Many lips, I fee, have smiled
At fuch language to a child,
Many tongues that language wild,
Doubtlefs call:

But my daughter does not laugh;
She can winnow grain from chaff,
And can understand me half,

I would have you, Mifs, to know,
In a time, fo long ago

That all claffes, high or low,
Went about

In the funnieft of "figs"
Wearing cauliflower wigs,
Some with tails behind like pigs,
Some without;

When each gentleman or lord,
Who the weapon could afford,
Was obliged to wear a fword,
To be fmart;

When a lady, on her face,
Sticking-plaifter used to place,
As an ornament and grace.
(What a start!)

In this funny age of yore,
At whofe follies now we roar,
(I have told you. Mifs, before,
"Twas long fince!)

Truth's and Wifdom's flag to wave,
The oppreffed and weak to fave,
There was born a good and brave
Fairy Prince!

And the fairies at his birth,
Who prefide o'er human worth,
Gave him gifts to visit earth

Good and bad;

An indomitable heart;
With a confcience prone to ftart,
And at Evil's flightest smart
To go mad;

A capacious fearching brain,
A contempt for worldly gain,
And a princely true difdain

For a lie;

While they pinched his giant frame
With more pains than I can name,
And a pride that nought could tame
Made him bear,

With a fcorn for lordly gifts,
Through innumerable fhifts
Where, of wintry want, the drifts
Blind the air!

But the fpell was to be moved
When the Prince his work had proved,
And his claim to be beloved
Clearly fhown.

Shall I tell you how he wrought,
With what kind of arms he fought,
For the noble end he fought,
All alone?

Of his gallant deeds, but few
I have time to tell to you,
But, attend to one or two-
Three or four;

He a humble dwelling stocked,
Where the pooreft fuff'rers flocked,
To affliction never locked

Ne'er the leaft complaining word
Was by these dependents heard ;
He could e'en refpect a bird-
Nay, a cat!

He could fnatch from jail a friend,
And his only guinea lend;
Glowing pages e'en he penned
For a thief

And a trickster doomed to die:
Lines a monarch could not buy,
He could lavish, tears to dry,
Shed by grief.

But the greatest of his deeds,
That his loving student reads,
Over which the whole heart bleeds
Of mankind,

Is an act of courage grand
Which you fearce can understand,
Till the truths of life expand
Your young mind.