That fluttered round the Lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny Postage-Stamp.
"You'd best be getting home," he said:
"The nights are very damp!"

He thought he saw a Garden Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double-Rule-of-Three:
"And all its mystery," he said,
"Is clear as day to me!"

He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
"A fact so dread," he faintly said,
"Extinguishes all hope!"

339

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was an English minister
and the writer of many hymns still included in
our hymn books. He had a notion that verse
might be used as a means of religious and
ethical instruction for children, and wrote
some poems as illustrations of his theory so
that they might suggest to better poets how to
carry out the idea. But Watts did this work so
well that two or three of his poems and several
of his stanzas have become common possessions.
They are dominated, of course, by the heavy
didactic moralizing, but are all so genuine and
true that young readers feel their force and
enjoy them.

AGAINST IDLENESS AND MISCHIEF

ISAAC WATTS

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell,
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

340

FAMOUS PASSAGES FROM DOCTOR WATTS

O 'tis a lovely thing for youth
To walk betimes in wisdom's way;
To fear a lie, to speak the truth,
That we may trust to all they say.

But liars we can never trust,
Though they should speak the thing that's true;
And he that does one fault at first,
And lies to