The New Duckling

Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond
Enjoyed yet grieved at more than others,
Were little ducklings in a pond,
Swimming about beside their mothers -
Small things like living water-lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-dillies.

"It's very hard," she used to moan,
"That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters - mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings."
For why! - each little yellow navy
Went down - all downy - to old Davy!

She had a lake - a pond, I mean -
Its wave was rather thick than pearly -
She had two ducks, their napes were green -
She had a drake, his tail was curly, -
Yet 'spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!

The birds were both the best of mothers -
The nests had eggs - t...

It chanced upon a certain day,
When cheerful Summer, bright and gay,
Had brought once more her gift of flowers,
To dress anew her pleasant bowers;
When birds and insects on the wing
Made all the air with music ring;
When sunshine smiled on dell and knoll,
Two Ducks set forth to take a stroll.
'Twas morning; and each grassy bank
Of cooling dew had deeply drank--
Each fair young flower was holding up
Its sweet and freshly painted cup,
Filled with bright dew drops, every one;
Gay, sparkling treasures for the sun,
Who bears them lightly to the sky,
Holds them as vapor far on high,
Till with his rays in dazzling tints,
The rainbow on the cloud he paints.
But our two Ducks we'll not forget,
They were not troubled by the wet;
They rambled on, and ...

COUSIN WILDING,

I confess I did not at all expect to hear from you; for I always believed you to be one of those thoughtless young creatures which are to be found in other stations of life as well as in yours and mine, who, as soon as they get fledged and able to get abroad, care no more for their parents and those who brought them up than I care for a shower of rain. However, you have escaped danger twice, and you have reason to congratulate yourself. I have been sitting here upon ten eggs for three weeks past, and of course have another week to be confined; but then the thoughts of the pleasure I shall have in hatching and guiding my young ones to the water, is ample payment for all my pains. They will look so clean and so delighted, and will do as they are bid by the smallest quack that I can utter, that I must be a b...

A little bird sat on the edge of her nest;
    Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops;
Day-long she had worked almost without rest,
    And had filled every one of their gibbous crops;
Her own she had filled just over-full,
And she felt like a dead bird stuffed with wool.

"Oh dear!" she sighed, as she sat with her head
    Sunk in her chest, and no neck at all,
Looking like an apple on a feather-bed
    Poked and rounded and fluffed to a ball,
"What's to be done if things don't reform?
I cannot tell where there is one more worm!

"I've had fifteen to-day, and the children five each,
    Besides a few flies, and some very fat spiders:
Who will dare say I don't do as I preach?
    I set an example to all providers!
But what's the use? We want a storm...

Through my north window, in the wintry weather, -
My airy oriel on the river shore, -
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in council sitting
On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late,
While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting,
And leave the tardy conclave in debate,

Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving
Whose deeper meaning science never learns,
Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving,
The speechless senate silently adjourns.

But when along the waves the shr...

The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told
This terrible tale of the days of old,
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks.

"Well, it ain't all joy bein' on the land
With an overdraft that'd knock you flat;
And the rabbits have pretty well took command;
But the hardest thing for a man to stand
Is the feller who says 'Well I told you so!
You should ha' done this way, don't you know!',
I could lay a bait for a man like that.

"The grasshoppers struck us in ninety-one
And what they leave, well, it ain't de luxe.
But a growlin' fault-findin' son of a gun
Who'd lent some money to stock our ...