Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/192

154 I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

Among my skimming swallows;

I make the netted sunbeams dance

Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses.

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

.

The Ballad of the "Clampherdown."

was our war-ship Clampherdown

Would sweep the Channel clean,

Wherefore she kept her hatches close

When the merry Channel chops arose,

To save the bleached marine.

She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton,

And a great stern-gun beside;