At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.
Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
There, in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter’s camp...
From “The English Struwwelpeter”
HERE is cruel Frederick, see!
A horrid wicked boy was he;
He caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings.
He killed the birds, and broke the chairs,
And threw the kitten down the stairs;
And Oh! far worse than all beside,
He whipped his Mary, till she cried.
...
From “The English Struwwelpeter”
IT almost makes me cry to tell
What foolish Harriet befel.
Mamma and Nurse went out one day
And left her all alone at play;
Now, on the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand;
And kind Mamma and Nurse had told her,
That, if she touched them, they should scold her.
But Harriet...
From “The English Struwwelpeter”
AS he trudged along to school,
It was always Johnny’s rule
To be looking at the sky
And the clouds that floated by;
But what just before him lay,
In his way,
Johnny never thought about;
So that every one cried out—
“Look at little Johnny there,
Little Johnny Head-in-Air!”
...
Across the pathway, myrtle-fringed,
Under the maple, it was hinged—
The little wooden gate;
’T was there within the quiet gloam,
When I had strolled with Nelly home,
I used to pause and wait
Before I said to her good-night,
Yet loath to leave the winsome sprite
Within the garden’s pale;
And there, the gate...
O Perfect Light, which shaid away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o’er the day,
Another o’er the night—
Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
More vively doth appear,
Than at mid day unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.
The shadow of the earth anon
Removes and drawis by,
While in the...
Silence. A while ago
Shrieks went up piercingly;
But now is the ship gone down;
Good ship, well manned, was she.
There ’s a raft that ’s a chance of life for one,
This day upon the sea.
A chance for one of two—
Young, strong, are he and he,
Just in the manhood prime,
The comelier, verily,
For...
Unto like Story — Trouble has enticed me —
How Kinsmen fell —
Brothers and Sister — who preferred the Glory —
And their young will
Bent to the Scaffold, or in Dungeons — chanted —
Till God's full time —
When they let go the ignominy — smiling —
And Shame went still —
Unto...
