They filled up then a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
And heaved in poor John Barleycorn,
To let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him further woe;
And still as signs of life appeared,
They tossed him to and fro.
They wasted o'er a scorching flame
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller used him worst of all—
He crushed him 'tween two stones.
And they have taken his very heart's blood,
And drunk it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
Robert Burns.
A Life on the Ocean Wave.
"A Life on the Ocean Wave," by Epes Sargent (1813-80), gives the swing and motion of the water of the great ocean. Children remember it almost unconsciously after hearing it read several times.
A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
Where the scattered waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep!
Like an eagle caged, I pine
On this dull, unchanging shore:
Oh! give me the flashing brine,
The spray and the tempest's roar!
