at Scho-pen-hau-er's driv-ing at?
Oh, not at all; but what of that?
Nei-ther do I; nei-ther does she;
And, for that mat-ter, nor does he.
The Ant.
MY child, ob-serve the use-ful Ant,
How hard she works each day.
She works as hard as ad-a-mant
(That's very hard, they say).
She has no time to gal-li-vant;
She has no time to play.
Let Fido chase his tail all day;
Let Kitty play at tag:
She has no time to throw a-way,
She has no tail to wag.
She scurries round from morn till night;
She ne-ver, ne-ver sleeps;
She seiz-es ev-ery-thing in sight,
And drags it home with all her might,
And all she takes she keeps.
An Arctic Hare.
AN Arc-tic Hare we now be-hold.
The hair, you will ob-serve, is white;
But if you think the Hare is old,
You will be ver-y far from right.
The Hare is young, and yet the hair
Grew white in but a sin-gle night.
Why, then it must have been a scare
That turned this Hare. No; 't was not fright
(Al-though such cases are well known);
I fear that once a-gain you're wrong.
Know then, that in the Arc-tic Zone
A sin-gle night is six months long.
The Wolf.
OH, yes, the Wolf is bad, it's true;
But how with-out him could we do?
If there were not a wolf, what good
Would be the tale of RID-ING-HOOD?
The Lit-tle Child from sin will fly
When told the wick-ed Wolf is nigh;
And when, ar-rived at Man's es-tate,
He hears the Wolf out-side his gate,
He knows it's time to put a-way
I-dle fri-vol-i-ty and play.
That's how (but do not men-tion it)
This prim-er hap-pened to be writ.
An Ostrich.
THIS is an Os-trich. See him stand:
His head is bur-ied in the sand.
It is not that he seeks for food,
Nor is he shy, nor is he rude;
But he is sen-si-tive, and shrinks
And hides his head when-e'er he thinks
How, on the Gains-bor-ough hat some day
Of some fine la-dy at the play,
His fea-thers may ob-struct the view
Of all the stage from me or you.
The Hippopotamus.
"OH, say, what is this fearful, wild
In-cor-ri-gible cuss?"
"This _crea-ture_ (don't say 'cuss,' my child;
'T is slang)--this crea-ture fierce is styled The Hip-po-pot-am-us.
His curious name de-rives its source
From two Greek words: _hippos_--a horse,
_Potamos_--river. See?
The river's plain e-nough, of course;
But why
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