“You think I am dead,”
    The quick grass said,
“Because I have parted with stem and blade! 
    But under the ground
    I am safe and sound
With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid. 
I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
    Should the spring of the year
    Come dancing here—­
But I pity the flower without branch or root.” 
    “You think I am dead,”
    A soft voice said,
“Because not a branch or root I own. 
    I never have died,
    But close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.  Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
    You will see me again—­
    I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”
                              Edith M. Thomas.

LITTLE DANDELION

Little bud Dandelion
  Hears from her nest,
“Merry heart, starry eye,
  Wake from your rest!”
Wide ope the emerald lids;
  Robin’s above;
Wise little Dandelion
  Smiles at his love.

Cold lie the daisy-banks,
  Clad but in green,
Where in the Mays agone
  Bright hues were seen. 
Wild pinks are slumbering,
  Violets delay—­
True little Dandelion
  Greeteth the May.

Meek little Dandelion
  Groweth more fair,
Till dries the amber dew
  Out from her hair. 
High rides the thirsty sun,
  Fiercely and high,—­
Faint little Dandelion
  Closeth her eye.

Dead little Dandelion,
  In her white shroud,
Heareth the angel-breeze
  Call from the cloud. 
Tiny plumes fluttering
  Make no delay,
Little winged Dandelion
  Soareth away.
                Helen L. Bostwick.

*       *       *       *       *
*       *       *       *       *

INDEX OF TITLES

Afternoon in February Henry W. Longfellow
Ant and the Cricket, The Anonymous
April Day, An Henry W. Longfellow
April Welcome, An Phoebe Cary
Autumn Alice Cary
Autumn Fires Robert Louis Stevenson

Ballad of the Tempest, The James T. Fields
Birds in Summer Mary Howitt
Bluebird, The Emily Huntington Miller
Blue Jay, The Susan Hartley Swett
“Bob White” George Cooper
Brook-Song, The James Whitcomb Riley
Brown Thrush, The Lucy Larcom
Busy Day, A Anonymous