Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,

Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,

Mine the walnut slopes beyond,

Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!

Still as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!

Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:

All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like the colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,

Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

THE LEAVES AND THE WIND.

"COME little leaves," said the wind one day,

Come o'er the meadows with me and play;

Put on your dresses of red and gold,

Summer is gone, and the days grow cold."

Soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call, Down they came fluttering, one and all; Over the brown fields they danced and flew, Singing the soft little songs that they knew.

"Cricket, good-bye, we've been friends so long! Little brook, sing us your farewell song! Say you are sorry to see us go;

Ah! you will miss us, right well we know."

"Dear little lambs, in your fleecy fold,
Mother will keep you from harm and cold ;
Fondly we've watched you in vale and glade ;
Say, will you dream of our loving shade?"

Dancing and whirling, the little leaves went ;
Winter had called them, and they were content.
Soon fast asleep in their earthy beds,

The snow laid a coverlet over their heads.

GEORGE Cooper.

CONSOLATION.

WHEN Molly came home from the party to-night,The party was out at nine,—

There were traces of tears in her bright blue eyes
That looked mournfully up to mine.

For some one had said, she whispered to me,
With her face on my shoulder hid,

Some one had said (there were sobs in her voice)
That they didn't like something she did.

So I took my little girl up on my knee,—
I am old and exceedingly wise,-
And I said, "My dear, now listen to me;
Just listen, and dry your eyes.

"This world is a difficult world, indeed,

And people are hard to suit,

And the man who plays on the violin
Is a bore to the man with the flute.

66

And I myself have often thought, How very much better 'twould be, If every one of the folks that I know Would only agree with me.

"But since they will not, the very best
To make this world look bright

Is, never to mind what people say
But to do what you think is right."

way

WALTER LEarned.

A LIFE LESSON.

THERE! little girl; don't cry!

They have broken your doll, I know;

And your tea-set blue,

And your play-house, too,

Are things of the long ago;

But childish troubles will soon pass by.

There! little girl; don't cry!

There! little girl; don't cry!

They have broken your slate, I know;

And the glad, wild ways

Of your school-girl days

Are things of the long ago;

But life and love will soon come by.
There! little girl; don't cry!

There! little girl; don't cry!

They have broken your heart, I know;

And the rainbow gleams

Of your youthful dreams

Are things of the long ago;

But Heaven holds all for which you sigh.

There! little girl; don't cry!

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

THE LOST KISS.

I PUT away the half-written poem,

While the pen, idly trailed in my hand, Writes on," Had I words to complete it, Who'd read it, or who'd understand?" For the little bare feet on the stairway, And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall, And the eerie-low lisp on the silence, Cry up to me over it all.

So I gather it up-where was broken

The tear-faded thread of my theme, Telling how, as one night I sat writing, A fairy broke in on my dream;

A little inquisitive fairy

My own little girl, with the gold Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy Blue eyes of the fairies of old.