Whistle never tuned for thee;
          Though thou want’st not, thou shall have them,
          Loving hearts were they which gave them. 
          Let not one be missing; nurse,
          See them laid upon the hearse
          Of infant slain by doom perverse. 
          Why should kings and nobles have
          Pictured trophies to their grave;
          And we, churls, to thee deny
          Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
          A more harmless vanity?

TO BERNARD BARTON

With a Coloured Print[6]

(1827)

When last you left your Woodbridge pretty,
To stare at sights, and see the City,
If I your meaning understood,
You wish’d a Picture, cheap, but good;
The colouring? decent; clear, not muddy;
To suit a Poet’s quiet study,
Where Books and Prints for delectation
Hang, rather than vain ostentation. 
The subject? what I pleased, if comely;
But something scriptural and homely: 
A sober Piece, not gay or wanton,
For winter fire-sides to descant on;
The theme so scrupulously handled,
A Quaker might look on unscandal’d;
Such as might satisfy Ann Knight,
And classic Mitford just not fright. 
Just such a one I’ve found, and send it;
If liked, I give—­if not, but lend it. 
The moral? nothing can be sounder. 
The fable? ’tis its own expounder—­
A Mother teaching to her Chit
Some good book, and explaining it. 
He, silly urchin, tired of lesson,
His learning lays no mighty stress on,
But seems to hear not what he hears;
Thrusting his fingers in his ears,
Like Obstinate, that perverse funny one,
In honest parable of Bunyan. 
His working Sister, more sedate,
Listens; but in a kind of state,
The painter meant for steadiness;
But has a tinge of sullenness;
And, at first sight, she seems to brook
As ill her needle, as he his book. 
This is the Picture.  For the Frame—­
’Tis not ill-suited to the same;
Oak-carved, not gilt, for fear of falling;
Old-fashion’d; plain, yet not appalling;
And sober, as the Owner’s Calling.

[Footnote 6:  From the venerable and ancient Manufactory of Carrington Bowles:  some of my readers may recognise it.]

THE YOUNG CATECHIST[7]

(1827)

While this tawny Ethiop prayeth,
Painter, who is she that stayeth
By, with skin of whitest lustre,
Sunny locks, a shining cluster,
Saint-like seeming to direct him
To the Power that must protect him? 
Is she of the Heaven-born Three,
Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity: 
Or some Cherub?—­
They you mention
Far transcend my weak invention. 
’Tis a simple Christian child,
Missionary young and mild,
From her stock of Scriptural knowledge,
Bible-taught without a college,
Which by reading she could gather,
Teaches him to say OUR FATHER
To the common Parent, who
Colour not respects, nor hue. 
White and black in him have part,
Who looks not to the skin, but heart.