A fly a little thing you rate—­
  But, Robert, do not estimate
  A creature’s pain by small or great;
      The greatest being

  Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh,
  And these the smallest ones possess,
  Although their frame and structure less
      Escape our seeing.

EYES

  Lucy, what do you espy
  In the cast in Jenny’s eye
  That should you to laughter move? 
  I far other feelings prove. 
  When on me she does advance
  Her good-natur’d countenance,
  And those eyes which in their way
  Saying much, so much would say,
  They to me no blemish seem,
  Or as none I them esteem;
  I their imperfection prize
  Above other clearer eyes.

    Eyes do not as jewels go
  By the brightness and the show,
  But the meanings which surround them,
  And the sweetness shines around them.

    Isabel’s are black as jet,
  But she cannot that forget,
  And the pains she takes to show them
  Robs them of the praise we owe them. 
  Ann’s, though blue, affected fall;
  Kate’s are bright, but fierce withal;
  And the sparklers of her sister
  From ill-humour lose their lustre. 
  Only Jenny’s eyes we see,
  By their very plainness, free
  From the vices which do smother
  All the beauties of the other.

PENNY PIECES

    “I keep it, dear Papa, within my glove.” 
  “You do—­what sum then usually, my love,
  Is there deposited?  I make no doubt,
  Some Penny Pieces you are not without.”

    “O no, Papa, they’d soil my glove, and be
  Quite odious things to carry.  O no—­see,
  This little bit of gold is surely all
  That I shall want; for I shall only call
  For a small purchase I shall make, Papa,
  And a mere trifle I’m to buy Mamma,
  Just to make out the change:  so there’s no need
  To carry Penny Pieces, Sir, indeed.”

    “O now I know then why a blind man said
  Unto a dog which this blind beggar led,—­
  ’Where’er you see some fine young ladies, Tray,
  Be sure you lead me quite another way. 
  The poor man’s friend fair ladies us’d to be;
  But now I find no tale of misery
  Will ever from their pockets draw a penny.’—­
  The blind man did not see they wear not any.”

THE RAINBOW

  After the tempest in the sky
  How sweet yon Rainbow to the eye! 
  Come, my Matilda, now while some
  Few drops of rain are yet to come,
  In this honeysuckle bower
  Safely shelter’d from the shower,
  We may count the colours o’er.—­
  Seven there are, there are no more;
  Each in each so finely blended,
  Where they begin, or where are ended,
  The finest eye can scarcely see. 
  A fixed thing it seems to be;