Weep for the babes of guilt, who sleep With scanty rags stretch’d o’er them, On the dark road, the downward steep Of misery; while before them Looms out afar the dreadful tree, And solemn, sad Eternity! Nor weep alone; but when to Heaven The cords of sorrow bind thee, Let kindest help to such be given, As God shall teach to find thee; And, for the sake of those above, Do deeds of Wisdom, Mercy, Love. The child that sicken’d on thy knee, Thou weeping Christian mother, Had learn’d in this world, lispingly, Words suited for another. Oh, dost thou think, with pitying mind, On untaught infants left behind? FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY. I won’t bear it, and I don’t see why I should. Having begun to commit my grievances to writing, I have made up my mind to go on. You men have a saying, ‘I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’ Very good. _I_ may as well get into a false position with our proprietor for a ream of manuscript as a quire. Here goes! I want to know who BUFFON was. I’ll take my oath he wasn’t a bird. Then what did _he_ know about birds—especially about Ravens? He pretends to know all about Ravens. Who told him? Was his authority a Raven? I should think not. There never was a Raven yet, who committed himself, you’ll find, if you look into the precedents. There’s a schoolmaster in dusty black knee-breeches and stockings, who comes and stares at our establishment every Saturday, and brings a lot of boys with him. He is always bothering the boys about BUFFON. That’s the way I know what BUFFON says. He is a nice man, BUFFON; and you’re all nice men together, ain’t you? What do you mean by saying that I am inquisitive and impudent, that I go everywhere, that I affront and drive off the dogs, that I play pranks on the poultry, and that I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook? That’s what your friend BUFFON says, and you adopt him it appears. And what do you mean by calling me ‘a glutton by nature, and a thief by habit?’ Why, the identical boy who was being told this, on the strength of BUFFON, as he looked through our wires last Saturday, was almost out of his mind with pudding, and had got another boy’s top in his pocket!