So Billy went up to the main-topgallant mast,
And down he fell on his bended knee.
He scarce had come to the Twelfth Commandment
When up he jumps, "There's land I see.
"Jerusalem and Madagascar,
And North and South Amerikee:
There's the British flag a-riding at anchor,
With Admiral Napier, K. C. B."
So when they got aboard of the Admiral's
He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee;
But as for little Bill, he made him
The Captain of a Seventy-three.
William Makepeace Thackeray.
The Butterfly and the Bee.
"The Butterfly and the Bee," by William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850), is recommended by some school-girls. It carries a lesson in favour of the worker.
Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a labouring bee:
"Thou hast no colours of the sky
On painted wings like me."
"Poor child of vanity! those dyes,
And colours bright and rare,"
With mild reproof, the bee replies,
"Are all beneath my care.
"Content I toil from morn to eve,
And scorning idleness,
To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave
The vanity of dress."
William Lisle Bowles.
