FOR CHILDREN. 203

If freedom to your soul is dear, have pity then on
me
Unbar the narrow cage, and set your hapless
prisoner free !
Susanna Strickland.

EPITAPH ON A TAME HARE!

Herz lies whom hound did ne’er vursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow ;

Whose foot ne'er tainted morning's dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s halloo;

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nursed with tender care,

And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild Jack-hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,

He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread,
And milk, and oats, and straw,

Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.?

1 Tiney and Puss were the names of two tame hares kept
many years by the poet Cowper :—on the death of Tiney
he wrote these lines as a memorial.

* Maw—stomach,