Peter Parley's Almanac for Old and Young

Front Cover
1836
 

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Page 76 - Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry; The distant hills are looking nigh. How restless are the snorting swine ! The busy flies disturb the kine ; Low o'er the grass the swallow wings, The cricket, too, how sharp he sings ! Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws, Sits wiping o'er her whiskered jaws.
Page 76 - Last night the sun went pale to bed, The moon in halos hid her head ; The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For, see, a rainbow spans the sky ; The walls are damp, the ditches smell ; Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel. Hark how the chairs and tables crack...
Page 76 - Careful observers may foretell the hour, (By sure prognostics,) when to dread a shower. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then, go not far to dine: You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine. A coming shower your shooting...
Page 83 - From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go mark him well : For him no minstrel raptures swell ; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; Despite those titles, power and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung.
Page 76 - The hollow winds begin to blow, The clouds look black, the glass is low ; The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, And spiders from their cobwebs peep.
Page 83 - Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go mark him well...
Page 77 - And nimbly catch the incautious flies. The glowworms, numerous and bright, Illumed the dewy dell last night. At dusk the squalid toad was seen. Hopping and crawling o'er the green : The whirling wind, the dust obeys, And in the rapid eddy plays ; The frog has changed his yellow vest, And in a russet coat is dressed.
Page 22 - Then came old January, wrapped well In many weeds to keep the cold away; Yet did he quake and quiver, like to quell, And blowe his nayles to warme them if he may; For they were numbd with holding all the day An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray: Upon an huge great Earth-pot steane he stood, From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Romane Flood.
Page 18 - Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
Page 58 - Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I ; Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may ; Life is short, and wears away. " Both alike are mine and thine, Hastening quick to their decline ; Thine's a summer, mine no more, Though repeated to threescore ; Threescore summers, when they're gone, Will appear as short as one.

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