THE PROVERB THAT DIDN'T PAN OUT.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1634, 23 December 1882, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE PROVERB THAT DIDN'T PAN OUT.

By Ciivules Turner.

A mother to her baby bhd, In sweet maternal way, Once read some moral lessons, on The part he'd have to play, When going out into the woild, Whose dangers, and whose cares, Fair youth and innocence, too oft Entangled in its. snaies. How fruits of thnftmesb weie reaped, When agerf, and iniirm, " That the biid who > iscs eat ly, It, the bud that gets the iconn." '

Now little Dick no glutton was, Yet very well he knew, That dainty, tender, three-inch worms, Washed down with morning dew, Were not bad "tack" to fatten on. S6 to himself he said — " I'll prove these words to-morrow morn;" And toddled up to bed. Promptly at day-break " Birdie" rose, Nor stopped to "do his hair," (In fact, I'm very much afraid— Forgot to say his prayers !) But with a hurried, fluttering gait, Went scrambling down the stairs ! Then in the forest near at hand He searched, but searched in vain — He tried the moor, yet never saw, What he had hoped to gain. But wandering back, a rifle's crack Kesounded o'er the plain, The bullet found it's mark, and he Lay wounded — well-nigh slain. ' In piteous accents then he cried " The lesson that was read, The proverb dire that tempted me To leave my nice soft bed — A cosy, comfortable cot, Where I have lain, so snug That proverb, prized, must be revised, An 4 worm ba rendered slug.'