FOR CHILDREN. 19

With heavy sighs I often hear
You mourn my hapless woe ;
But sure with patience I can bear

A loss I ne’er can know.

Then let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy ;
While thus I sing, I am a king,
Although a poor Blind Boy.
C. Cibber.

THE MOCK-HERO.

Horatio, of ideal courage vain,

Was flourishing in air his father’s cane,

And, as the fumes of valour swelled his pate,
Now thought himself this hero, and now that;
“And now,” he cried, “ I will Achilles! be;

My sword I brandish: mark! the Trojans. flee |,
Now Ill be Hector,! when his angry blade —
Alane through heaps of slaughtered Grecians made!
And now my deeds, still braver, I'll evince,

E am no less than Edward the Black Prince—
Give way, ye coward French !”—As thus he spoke,
And aimed in fancy a sufficient stroke

lo fix the fate of Crecy or Poictiers—

Heroically spurning trivial fears—

His milk-white hand he strikes against a nail,
Sees his own blood, and feels his courage fail—

© Achilles and Hecetor—heroes celebrated in the Trojan
war.