Page:Taste life's glad moments (1).pdf/7

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7

Makes folly's whim prize equipage.
And children’s toys and crutches for age,
And coffins for us all.

Yet justice let us still afford,
Those chairs and this convivial board,
The binn that holds gay Bacchus’ hoard,
Confess the woodman’s stroke;
He made the press that bled the vine,
The butt that holds the generous wine,
The hall itself where tipplers join,
To crack their mirthful joke.



THE CUCKOO.

WHEN daisies py’d and violets blue,
And cuckoo buds, of yellow hue,
And lady smocks all silver white,
Do paint the meadows with delight;
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he—
Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws

And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,