Through the house what busy joy Just because the infant boy Has a tiny tooth to show! I have got a double row, All as white and all as small; Yet no one cares for mine at all. He can say but half a word, Yet that single sound’s preferr’d To all the words that I can say In the longest summer day. He cannot walk; yet if he put With mimic motion out his foot, As if he thought he were advancing, It’s prized more than my best dancing. BROTHER Sister, I know you jesting are, Yet O! of jealousy beware. [Illustration] If the smallest seed should be In your mind, of jealousy, It will spring and it will shoot Till it bear the baneful fruit. I remember you, my dear, Young as is this infant here. There was not a tooth of those Your pretty even ivory rows, But as anxiously was watch’d Till it burst its shell new-hatch’d As if it a phoenix were, Or some other wonder rare. So when you began to walk-- So when you began to talk-- As now, the same encomiums pass’d ’Tis not fitting this should last Longer than our infant days; A child is fed with milk and praise. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE BOY AND THE SKYLARK A FABLE] II “A wicked action fear to do, When you are by yourself; for though You think you can conceal it, A little bird that’s in the air The hidden trespass shall declare And openly reveal it.” Richard this saying oft had heard, Until the sight of any bird Would set his heart a-quaking; He saw a host of winged spies For ever o’er him in the skies, Note of his actions taking. This pious precept, while it stood In his remembrance, kept him good When nobody was by him; For though no human eye was near, Yet Richard still did wisely fear The little bird should spy him. [Illustration] But best resolves will sometimes sleep; Poor frailty will not always keep From that which is forbidden; And Richard one day, left alone, Laid hands on something not his own, And hoped the theft was hidden. His conscience slept a day or two, As it is very apt to do, When we with pain suppress it; And though at times a slight remorse Would raise a pang, it had not force To make him yet confess it. When on a day, as he abroad Walk’d by his mother, in their road He heard a skylark singing; Smit with the sound, a flood of tears Proclaim’d the superstitious fears His inmost bosom wringing.