Her
spirit was that of most of our Massachusetts coast-towns. They
were transplanted shoots of Old England. And it was the voice of
a mother-country more ancient than their own, that little
children heard crooning across the sea in their cradle-hymns and
nursery-songs.
VI.
GLIMPSES OF POETRY.
OUR close relationship to Old England was sometimes a little
misleading to us juveniles. The conditions of our life were
entirely different, but we read her descriptive stories and sang
her songs as if they were true for us, too. One of the first
things I learned to repeat--I think it was in the spelling-book--
began with the verse:--
"I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth has smiled,
And made me, in these latter days,
A happy English child."
And some lines of a very familiar hymn by Dr. Watts ran thus:--
"Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many poor I see.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
"How many children in the street
Half naked I behold;
While I am clothed from head to feet,
And sheltered from the cold.
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