Complete Alice in Wonderland - L. Carroll [162]
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skillfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
Alice Gray
by William Mee
She’s all my fancy painted her, she’s lovely, she’s divine,
But her heart it is another’s, she never can be mine.
Yet loved I as man never loved, a love without decay,
Oh, my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Alice Gray.
Her dark brown hair is braided o’er a brow of spotless white,
Her soft blue eye now languishes, now flashes with delight;
Her hair is braided not for me, the eye is turned away,
Yet my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Alice Gray.
I’ve sunk beneath the summer’s sun, and trembled in the blast.
But my pilgrimage is nearly done, the weary conflict’s past;
And when the green sod wraps my grave, may pity haply say,
Oh, his heart, his heart is broken for the love of Alice Gray!
Bonnie Dundee (Excerpt)
by Sir Walter Scott
To the Lords of Convention ’twas Claver’se who spoke,
“Ere the King’s crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke;
So let each Cavalier who loves honour and me,
Come follow the Bonnet of Bonny Dundee.”
“Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle your horses, and call up your men;
Come open the West Port, and let me gang free,
And it’s room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!”
The Dream of Eugene Aram (Excerpt)
by Thomas Hood
’Twas in the prime of summer-time
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.
Humpty Dumpty
(Mother Goose)
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Hush-a-by Baby
(Mother Goose)
Hush-a-by baby
On the tree top,
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
Down tumbles baby,
Cradle and all.
The Lion and the Unicorn
(Mother Goose)
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
And drummed them out of town.
And when he had beat him out,
He beat him in again;
He beat him three times over,
His power to maintain.
My Heart and Lute
Thomas Moore
I give thee all—I can no more—
Though poor the off’ring be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.
A lute who’s gentle song reveals
The soul of love full well;
And, better far, a heart that feels
Much more than lute could tell.
Though love and song may fail, alas!
To keep life’s clouds away,
At least ’twill make them lighter pass
Or gild them if they stay.
And ev’n if Care, at moments, flings
A discord o’er life’s happy strain,
Let love but gently touch the strings,
’Twill all be sweet again!
The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them
by Robert Southey
“You are old, father William,” the young man cried,
“The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, father William, a hearty old man;
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”
“In the days of my youth,” father William replied,
“I remember’d that youth would fly fast,
And abus’d not my health and my vigour at first,
That I never might need them at last.”
“You are old, father William,” the young man cried,
“And pleasures with youth pass away.
And yet you lament not the days that are gone;
Now tell me the reason I pray.”
“In the days of my youth,” father William replied,
“I remember’d that youth could not last;
I thought of the future, whatever I did,
That I never might grieve for the