A blockhead |
A MAGPIE once was such a dunce,
That all the people said,
More bricks would lie in a fish’s eye,
Than learning in his head.
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And though his mother herself did bother
And every trouble took,
Yet not one word could that dull bird
Repeat without his book.
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Till once he saw a young jackdaw
Who dearly loved his letters;
Though not so much his taste was such,
As ’twas to ape his betters.
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Howe’er this be the jackdaw he
Could tell a funny story;
And many a bird his prattle heard
And envied him his glory.
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may emulate
eloquence; |
But when he shew’d the wond’ring crowd
How he could spout and swell,
The Magpie tried for very pride
If he could do as well.
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and, by
practice,
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And every night by candlelight
He conn’d his lessons o’er,
And every morn with the herdsman’s horn
He rose and practised more.
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learn to
speak with
fluency,
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Full soon he thought himself well taught,
And then began to chatter:
And the careful dame, his mother, came
To see what was the matter.
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plausibility,
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Like Miller Peel he smiled a deal,
And cull’d the fairest diction;
And look’d quite true though well he knew
That every word was fiction.
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and grimace,
so as to satisfy
himself,—
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Then to his nose he raised his toes,
And gravely look’d askew;
And thought himself a clever elf:—
And his mother thought so too.
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and his mother,
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“Caw, caw!” quoth she; “he sure must be
An orator or poet:
I’ll have him sent to Parliament,
That all the world may know it.”
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—but not the
Commons
of England.
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But though he shone so much alone,
And made his mother stare,
“The Members” swore he was a bore,
And had no business there.
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Yet there he is, and there I wis,
He’s likely still to be;
As, should you call at Stephen’s hall,
Yourself may chance to see.
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