The pastor, who entered at that gate and greeted his comely wife and children, fed the little lambkins with tracts.

Leave the hearth and leave the house To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet.

So she did; for she lived to see Sophy plump, cheery, and care-free; Polly surrounded by a flock of Lambkins; Van in possession of a generous slice of the Van Bahr fortune; Toady revelling in the objects of his desire; and, best of all, she lived to find that it is never too late to make oneself useful, happy, and beloved.

Sheep on the hills around me feeding, While in their piteous accents pleading, The lambkins' bleatings float.

No greater misconception has ever been obtruded upon the world as philosophic criticism, than the theory of poets being the offspring of "capering lambkins and cooing doves"; for they differ in no respect from other men of high endowment, but in the single circumstance of the objects to which their taste is attracted.

So when day grows dark and cold, Tear or triumph harms, Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, Take them in Thine arms; Feed the hungry, heal the heart, Till the morning's beam; White as wool, ere they depart Shepherd, wash them clean.

" Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering; somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.

Oft lead them forth where wanton lambkins play, 140 And bleating dams with jealous eyes observe Their tender care.

Damon this evening carries home his bride, In all the harmless pomp of rural pride: Where, for two spotted lambkins, newly yean'd, With nimble feet and voice, the nymphs contend:

He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold.

Then quick he laid his shepherd's crook Upon a grassy bank; And off he waded in the brook From which the lambkins drank.

Oh, when shall I return to stay, With all I love, now far away, My father, mother, I'll caress, My sister, brother, fondly press, While lambkins play, And cattle stray, And smiles my lovely shepherdess.

Spring poets are suffering from suspended animation; there is a slump in crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils and lambkins.

'Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play, Hardly less a lamb than they.

Its branches spread wide and high, and bees came from all parts to gather their honey-harvests among the flowers; beneath its shade lambkins were wont in spring to sleep beside their dams; and when the time of shearing came, and the sheep were disburdened of their fleeces, you might see them hastening to the sycamore tree for shelter.

Here and there a mother turned her head to call back anxiously for the bleating lambkin lost behind the white curtain; and, dim and grotesque, the awkward strayling would come gamboling into sight.

" "What!" exclaimed Madeleine in despair, "am I not to see the lovely lambkins bleating and skipping in the meadows on the banks of the Lignon, O Celadon?"

Thomas Muskerry wrote this, 1850 "In the pleasant month of May, When the lambkins sport and play, As I roved out for recreation, I spied a comely maid, Sequestered in the shade, And on her beauty I gazed in admiration." "I said I greatly fear That Mercury will draw near, As once he appeared unto Venus, Or as it might have been To the Carthaginian Queen, Or the Grecian Wight called Polyphemus.

And all the strident horror of Horse and rider, in red defeat, Is only music fine enough To lull him into slumber sweet In fields where ewe and lambkin bleat.

A rosebud like a feather bed, Its prickle like a spear; A dewdrop like a looking-glass, A hair like golden wire; The smallest grain of mustard-seed As fierce as coals of fire; A loaf of bread, a lofty hill; A wasp, a cruel leopard; And specks of salt as bright to see As lambkins to a shepherd.

"Good-night, my Lambkin, my child, my precious maidgood-night and God bless thee!"

Katherine gave no thought to regret, indeed she went so far as to smile at Janet's consternation, when she should find out that for once her "Lambkin" had fooled her.

"Speak out, Lambkin, that 'tis on thy mindif thou dost mean, was he disturbed when the castle was aroused?why, no, he was not.

" "Nay, I shall not see him!" "Tut, Lambkin!

The lambkin crops its crimson gem, The wild-bee murmurs on its breast, The blue-fly bends its pensile stem, Light o'er the sky-lark's nest.