The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-02-02
JACK AND JILL
VARIATIONS.

From the Chicago Times-Herald.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To get pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill camo tumbling after.
Mother Goose Rhymes
1t is all a matter of temperament.
Mother Goose was not given to sentiment,
and so could report with GOODNESS this
great tragedy. The sad sight witnessed by
another might have been the occasion for
awful warning, for philosophic speculation,
for mournful story long drawn out.
Milton, indeed, used it as the theme for
an immortal epic, and with his weary head
upon his hand he wrote:
OF Jacks great fall from that high emf
nence,
From which fell also his companion Jill,
While they were climbing hither to a
spring,
In hor- that they might dip one sparkling
OF water, and SO quench their parchng
thirst.
Sing heavenly muse.
Whittier. with honest sorrow. would have
sung:
Alas for Jack! alas for Jill!
That fateful quest for mountain rill!
And alas for any whom ills betide,
Upon a treacherous mountain side!
For of all hard trials, the hardest lies
In slipping when so near our prize
Mrs. Hemans would have pointed the
moral in this way:
The boy stood there with happy face
Beside his sweetheart Jill.
Within his bucket was no trace
OF water from the hill.
The fathers unexI .tcted call
Alarmed the pretty Jill,
And in their haste to answer him
Both tumbled down the hill.
Tennyson would have sighed as he sang:
Rich sunshine fills the vale and hills,
Two tender children, girl and brother,
Start out to bring from the high spring
A cup of water to their mother.
"Hie. children, HER we hear her faint
voice crying.
Eyes, mother, yes" the children answer,
Hieing, hieing, hieing.
o fate! death! They feel thy breath:
For as they climb the rocky slope
The brother slips, the sister trips,
And shattered is the mothers hope
voice crying,
Come, children, come" the echo an
swers.
Dying, dying, dying.
And poor Robert Burns, with heart full
of sorrow, would have said with touching
tenderness:
Ye birds that sing sac merrily,
And blthely bid me sweet good morrow,
WI We nae breathe some Sadder note?
Oh, ken we not some sang O. sorrow?
Twi' break my heart, unless thou'lt cease
To MARBLE thus thy mirth and gladness,
For my twa een are flu o. tears,
And my heart is muckle sadness.
Oft gaze on the quiet HILL
And see my BARNS my lass, my daughter,
And her fair brother, gaze to bring
From yonder spring a cup of water.
Oh, birds, wi We nae mourn wi me,
Ger these my bonnie girl and brother?
WI xe nae bring me flowers and leaves,
And help these hands their graves to
cover?
Wordsworth would have been pleased with
the simplicity of this story though it would
have troubled him to have ended 1t SO
tragically. Doubtless he would have said
something like this:
He dwert within lowly cot,
Beside a towering hill;
A boy who served his simple lot
With his loved sister Jill.
One day they wandered forth full gay,
To find mountain rill,
At eventide they made their grave
By this unfriendly hill.
Longfelow would have made kind of
melodrama something on this order:
And the setting sun descending,
Threw Its light upon the mountain.
Up this slope went boy and maiden,
Travelling toward pool of water.
Oh, the hard and treacherous hillsidei
Oh, the slippery, stony pathway
Fatal twas to many brave one.
Meath his feet trembling bowlder
Nnvad a Little toward the valley;