Poor mother

Gelett Burgess

Your father is working

All day, without shirking,

To pay for the clothes that you wear;

Your mother is mending

All day, and attending

To you, with the kindest of care.

And so, while you’re playing,

Think of your father who’s paying,

And mother, who’s working so hard.

The cry of the children

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

… The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;

The young birds are chirping in the nest;

The young fawns are playing with the shadows;

The young flowers are blowing towards the west –

But the young, young children, O my brothers,

They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,

In the country of the free.

Exercise X.

1. Look out of the window and say what is going on outside.

2. Describe the view from your window at night.

3. Write five true sentences about your continuing activities, with learn, read, study, write and try to.

4. Write five true sentences about yourself, people you know, your city and University describing changing situations.

5. Take any picture you like and describe it. Use the present Continuous and Present Indefinite.

6. Imagine you are in a nightclub watching what is going on around you. Write about what people around you are doing.

7. Assume you have a roommate named Jack who has many bad habits. These bad habits annoy you. Pretend you are speaking to a friend and complaining about Jack. Use the Present Continuous and always, constantly, forever in each sentence. Say your sentences aloud with some annoyance, impatience, or anger in your voice.