FOR CHILDREN. 943

Ascends the neighbouring beech? there whisks his
brush,
And perks' his ears, and stamps and cries aloud,
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,
And anger insignificantly fierce.
Cowper.

 

CASABIANCA, THE HEROIC BOY.'

Tue boy stood on the burning deck,
. Whence all but he had fled ;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead ;
Yet beautiful and bright he stood
As born to rule the storm ;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though child-like form ! °

The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his father’s word ;

That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud—* Say, father, say,
If yet my task is done !”

He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

} Perks—raises, tosses up.

* Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son
to the admiral of the Orient, a French ship of war, remained
at his post in the battle of the Nile, after the ship had taken
fire, and ail the guns bad been abandoned; and perished in

the explosion of the vessel when the flames had reached the
powder,