Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/204

166 Each parasite, then, as in duty bound,

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.

At length Modestus, bowing low,

Said (craving pardon, if too free he made),

"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade!"

"My father's trade! by heaven, that's too bad!

My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad?

My father, sir, did never stoop so low—

He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

"Excuse the liberty I take,"

Modestus said, with archness on his brow,

"Pray, why did not your father make

A gentleman of you?"

.

The Legend of Bishop Hatto.

summer and autumn had been so wet,

That in winter the corn was growing yet:

'Twas a piteous sight to see, all around,

The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor

Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door;

For he had a plentiful last-year's store,

And all the neighbourhood could tell

His granaries were furnished well.