A Ballad for a Boy.
Violo Roseboro, one of our good authors, brought to me "A Ballad for a Boy," saying: "I believe it is one of the poems that every child ought to know." It is included in this compilation out of respect to her opinion and also because the boys to whom I have read it said it was "great." The lessen in it is certainly fine. Men who are true men want to settle their own disputes by a hand-to-hand fight, but they will always help each other when a third party or the elements interfere. Humanity is greater than human interests.
When George the Third was reigning, a hundred years ago,
He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.
"You're not afraid of shot," said he, "you're not afraid of wreck,
So cruise about the west of France in the frigate called Quebec.
"Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years ago
King George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know,
To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec,
As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.
"If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then, so you can beat them now.
Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.
But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name,
And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same."
