Читать книгу Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages онлайн

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Feeding in sunshine pleasantly; they were the rich man's store:

There was the while one little lamb beside a cottage door;

A little lamb that rested with the children 'neath the tree,

That ate, meek creature, from their hands, and nestled to their knee;

That had a place within their hearts, one of the family.

But want, even as an armèd man, came down upon their shed,

The father laboured all day long that his children might be fed,

And, one by one, their household things were sold to buy them bread.

That father, with a downcast eye, upon his threshold stood,

Gaunt poverty each pleasant thought had in his heart subdued.

"What is the creature's life to us?" said he: "'twill buy us food.

"Ay, though the children weep all day, and with downdrooping head

Each does his small task mournfully, the hungry must be fed;

And that which has a price to bring must go to buy us bread."

It went. Oh! parting has a pang the hardest heart to wring,

But the tender soul of a little child with fervent love doth cling,