See the boy advance in age, And learning spreads her useful page; In vain--for giddy pleasure calls, And shows the marbles, tops, and balls. What’s learning to the charms of play? Th’ indulgent tutor must give way. A heedless wilful dunce, and wild, The parents’ fondness spoil’d the child; The youth in vagrant courses ran. Now, abject, stooping, old, and wan, Their fondling is the beggar man. [Illustration] [Illustration: BREAKFAST] XXVIII A dinner party, coffee, tea, Sandwich, or supper, all may be In their way pleasant. But to me Not one of these deserves the praise That welcomer of new-born days, A breakfast, merits; ever giving Cheerful notice we are living Another day refresh’d by sleep, When its festival we keep. Now, although I would not slight Those kindly words we use, “Good-night,” Yet parting words are words of sorrow, And may not vie with sweet “Good-morrow,” With which again our friends we greet When in the breakfast-room we meet, At the social table round, Listening to the lively sound Of those notes which never tire Of urn or kettle on the fire. [Illustration] Sleepy Robert never hears Or urn or kettle; he appears When all have finish’d, one by one Dropping off, and breakfast done. Yet has he too his own pleasure, His breakfast hour’s his hour of leisure; And, left alone, he reads or muses, Or else in idle mood he uses To sit and watch the venturous fly, Where the sugar’s piled high, Clambering o’er the lumps so white, Rocky cliffs of sweet delight. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE COFFEE SLIPS] XXIX Whene’er I fragrant coffee drink I on the generous Frenchman think, Whose noble perseverance bore The tree to Martinico’s shore. While yet her colony was new, Her island products but a few, Two shoots from off a coffee-tree He carried with him o’er the sea. Each little tender coffee-slip He waters daily in the ship; And as he tends his embryo trees Feels he is raising ’midst the seas Coffee groves, whose ample shade Shall screen the dark Creolian maid. But soon, alas! his darling pleasure In watching this his precious treasure, [Illustration]