When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
LITTLE BILLEE.
"Little Billee," by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), finds a
place here because it carries a good lesson good-naturedly rendered. An
accomplished teacher recommends it, and I recollect two young children
in Chicago who sang it frequently for years without getting tired of
it.
There were three sailors of Bristol city
Who took a boat and went to sea.
But first with beef and captain's biscuits
And pickled pork they loaded she.
There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy,
And the youngest he was little Billee.
Now when they got so far as the Equator
They'd nothing left but one split pea.
Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy,
"I am extremely hungaree.
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