To build which thousands were employed.
The shock was great, but as my life
I saved in the relentless strife,
I knew lamenting was in vain,
So patient went to work again;
By constant work a day or more
My little mansion did restore.
And if each tear which you have shed
Had been a needleful of thread,
If every sigh of sad despair
Had been a stitch of proper care,
Closed would have been the luckless rent,
Nor thus the day have been misspent."ANONYMOUS
The Goose and the Swans
A Goose, affected, empty, vain,
The shrillest of the cackling train,
With proud and elevated crest,
Precedence claimed above the rest,
Says she, "I laugh at human race,
Who say Geese hobble in their pace;
Look here—the slander base detect;
Not haughty man is so erect.
That Peacock yonder, see how vain
The creature's of his gaudy train.
If both were stripped, I'd pledge my word
A Goose would be the finer bird.
Nature, to hide her own defects,
Her bungled work with finery decks.
Were Geese set off with half that show,
Would men admire the Peacock? No!"
Thus vaunting, 'cross the mead she stalks,
The cackling breed attend her walks;
The sun shot down his noontide beams,