Young Lucy Payne lives on the Village Green;
Mary, you know the cottage, I am sure,
Under the hawthorn! 'Tis so neat and clean,
Though Widow Payne, alas! is blind and poor.
She plies her needles, and she plies them well,
And Lucy never spends an idle hour;
On market days their mits and socks they sell,
And thus their balls of worsted turn to flour.
I pass'd one morning by their cottage door;
Lucy was talking to a little child,
A ragged thing that lives upon the moor;
It's parents leave it to run rude and wild.
Hanger had tamed the little wilding thing,
It's cheeks were hollow, but it's air was light;
Young Lucy did not know I saw her bring
That porringer she kept so clean and bright.
It was her breakfast--all the darling had;
But oh! she gave it with a heart so glad.
[Illustration: Grace Darling Rowing in Storm.]