I said of laughter: it is vain. Of mirth I said: what profits it? Therefore I found a book, and wri… Therein how ease and also pain, How health and sickness, every one

A white hen sitting On white eggs three: Next, three speckled chickens As plump as plump can be. An owl, and a hawk,

On the grassy banks Lambkins at their pranks; Woolly sisters, woolly brothers Jumping off their feet While their woolly mothers

Passing away, saith the World, pa… Chances, beauty and youth, sapp’d… Thy life never continueth in one s… Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark… That hath won neither laurel nor b…

Dancing on the hill—tops, Singing in the valleys, Laughing with the echoes, Merry little Alice. Playing games with lambkins

A pin has a head, but has no hair; A clock has a face, but no mouth t… Needles have eyes, but they cannot… A fly has a trunk without lock or… A timepiece may lose, but cannot w…

Hear now a curious dream I dreame… Each word whereof is weighed and s… I stood beside Euphrates while it… Like overflowing Jordan in its yo… It waxed and coloured sensibly to…

If he would come to—day, to—day, t… O, what a day to—day would be! But now he’s away, miles and miles… From me across the sea. O little bird, flying, flying, fly…

Why were you born when the snow wa… You should have come to the cuckoo… Or when grapes are green in the cl… Or, at least, when lithe swallows… For their far off flying

Blind from my birth, Where flowers are springing I sit on earth All dark. Hark! hark!

Before the winter morn, Before the earliest cock crow, Jesus Christ was born: Born in a stable, Cradled in a manger,

Contemptuous of his home beyond The village and the village—pond, A large—souled Frog who spurned e… Hopped along the imperial highway. Nor grunting pig nor barking dog

Bread and milk for breakfast, And woollen frocks to wear, And a crumb for robin redbreast On the cold days of the year.