Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/274

236 A Ballad for a Boy.

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."