Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/183

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MARY'S POEMS.
167

who listens to and remembers all the sermon is contrasted, much to his disadvantage, with his sister who did not hear a word, because her heart was full of affectionate longing to make up a quarrel they had had outside the church-door,—is very pretty in a moral, if not in a musical point of view. This and the three examples which I subjoin were certainly Mary's. The lullaby calls up a picture of her as a sad child nursing her little Charles, though he was no orphan:

NURSING.

O hush, my little baby brother;
Sleep, my little baby brother;
Sleep, my love, upon my knee.
What though, dear child, we've lost our mother;
That can never trouble thee.

You are but ten weeks old to-morrow:
What can you know of our loss?
The house is full enough of sorrow,
Little baby, don't be cross.

Peace! cry not so, my dearest love;
Hush, my baby-bird, lie still;
He's quiet now, he does not move,
Fast asleep is little Will.

My only solace, only joy,
Since the sad day I lost my mother,
Is nursing her own Willy boy,
My little orphan brother.

The gentle raillery of the next seems equally characteristic of Mary:—

FEIGNED COURAGE.

Horatio, of ideal courage vain,
Was flourishing in air his father's cane,
And, as the fumes of valour swelled his pate,
Now thought himself this hero, and now that:
"And now," he cried, "I will Achilles be,
My sword I brandish; see, the Trojans flee.