Playing with Fire.

I’ve seen a little girl, mamma,

That had got such a dreadful scar,

All down her arms, and neck, and face,

I could not bear to see the place.

Poor little girl, and don’t you know

The shocking trick that made her so?

’Twas all because she went and did

A thing her mother had forbid.

For once, when nobody was by her,

This silly child would play with fire;

And long before her mother came,

Her pinafore was all on flame.

In vain she tried to put it out,

Till all her clothes were burnt about,

And then she suffer’d ten times more,

All over with a dreadful sore.

For many months before ’twas cured

Most shocking torments she endured;

And even now, when passing by her,

You see what ’tis to play with fire.