The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
THE BURIAL OF THE LINNET.
Found in the garden—dead
in his beauty.
Ah! that a linnet
should die in the spring!
Bury him, comrades, in pitiful
duty,
Muffle the dinner-bell,
solemnly ring.
Bury him kindly—up
in the corner;
Bird, beast, and
gold-fish are sepulchred there;
Bid the black kitten march
as chief mourner,
Waving her tail
like a plume in the air.
Bury him nobly—next
to the donkey;
Fetch the old
banner, and wave it about:
Bury him deeply—think
of the monkey,
Shallow his grave,
and the dogs got him out.
Bury him softly—white
wool around him,
Kiss his poor
feathers,—the first kiss and last;
Tell his poor widow kind friends
have found him:
Plant his poor
grave with whatever grows fast.
Farewell, sweet singer! dead
in thy beauty,
Silent through
summer, though other birds sing;
Bury him, comrades, in pitiful
duty,
Muffle the dinner-bell,
mournfully ring.
[Illustration: Master Fritz.]
Fritz and I are not brother and
sister, but we’re next-door
neighbours; for we both live next door.
I mean we both live next door to each other; for
I live at
number three, and Fritz and Nickel the
dog live at number
four.
In summer we climb through the garret windows
and sit
together on the leads,
And if the sun is too hot Mother lends us one
big kerchief
to put over both our heads.
Sometimes she gives us tea under the myrtle tree
in the big
pot that stands in the gutter.
(One slice each, and I always give Fritz the one
that has
the most butter.)
In winter we sit on the little stool by the stove
at number four;
For when it’s cold Fritz doesn’t like
to go out to come in next door.
It was one day in spring that he said, “I
should like to
have a house to myself with you Grethel,
and Nickel.” And I
said, “Thank you, Fritz.”
And he said, “If you’ll come in at
tea-time and sit by the stove, I’ll
tell you tales that’ll frighten
you into fits.
About boys who ran away from their homes, and
were taken by robbers,
and run after by wolves, and altogether
in a dreadful state.
I saw the pictures of it in a book I was looking
in, to see where
perhaps I should like to emigrate.
I’ve not quite settled whether I shall,
or be cast away on a desert
island, or settle down nearer home;
But you’d better come in and hear about
it, and then, wherever it is,
you’ll be sure to be ready to come.”
So I took my darling Katerina in my arms, and
we went in to tea.
I love Katerina, though she lost her head long
ago, poor thing; but
Fritz made me put her off my knee,
For he said, “When you’re hushabying
that silly old doll I know you’re
There once was a Willow, and he was very old,
And all his leaves fell off from him, and left him in the cold;
But ere the rude winter could buffet him with snow,
There grew upon his hoary head a crop of Mistletoe.
All wrinkled and furrowed
was this old Willow’s skin,
His taper fingers trembled,
and his arms were very thin;
Two round eyes and hollow,
that stared but did not see,
And sprawling feet that never
walked, had this most ancient tree.
A Dame who dwelt near was
the only one who knew
That every year upon his head
the Christmas berries grew;
And when the Dame cut them,
she said—it was her whim—
“A merry Christmas to
you, Sir!” and left a bit for him.
“Oh, Granny dear, tell
us,” the children cried, “where we
May find the shining Mistletoe
that grows upon the tree?”
At length the Dame told them,
but cautioned them to mind
To greet the Willow civilly,
and leave a bit behind.
“Who cares,” said
the children, “for this old Willow-man?
We’ll take the Mistletoe,
and he may catch us if he can.”
With rage the ancient Willow
shakes in every limb,
For they have taken all, and
have not left a bit for him!
Then bright gleamed the holly,
the Christmas berries shone,
But in the wintry wind without
the Willow-man did moan:
“Ungrateful, and wasteful!
the mystic Mistletoe
A hundred years hath grown
on me, but never more shall grow.”
A year soon passed by, and
the children came once more,
But not a sprig of Mistletoe
the aged Willow bore.
Each slender spray pointed;
he mocked them in his glee,
And chuckled in his wooden
heart, that ancient Willow-tree.
MORAL.
Oh, children, who gather the
spoils of wood and wold,
From selfish greed and wilful
waste your little hands withhold.
Though fair things be common,
this moral bear in mind,
“Pick thankfully and
modestly, and leave a bit behind.”
[Illustration]
OUR GARDEN.
The winter is gone; and at first
Jack and I were sad,
Because of the snow-man’s melting, but now
we are glad;
For the spring has come, and it’s warm,
and we’re allowed to garden
in the afternoon;
And summer is coming, and oh, how lovely our flowers
will be in June!
We are so fond of flowers, it makes us quite happy
to think
Of our beds—all colours—blue,
white, yellow, purple, and pink,
Scarlet, lilac, and crimson! And we’re
fond of sweet scents as well,
And mean to have pinks, roses, sweet peas, mignonette,
clove
carnations, musk, and everything good
to smell;
Lavender, rosemary, and we should like a lemon-scented
verbena, and
a big myrtle tree!
P.S. It is so tiresome!
Jack wants to build a green-house now,
He has found some bits of broken glass, and an
old window-frame, and
he says he knows how.
I tell him there’s not glass enough, but
he says there’s lots,
And he’s taken all the plants that belong
to the bed and put
them in pots.
He is not John the gardener,
And yet the whole day long
Employs himself most usefully,
The flower-beds among.
He is not Tom the pussy-cat,
And yet the other
day,
With stealthy stride and glistening
eye,
He crept upon
his prey.
He is not Dash the dear old
dog,
And yet, perhaps,
if you
Took pains with him and petted
him,
You’d come
to love him too.
He’s not a Blackbird,
though he chirps,
And though he
once was black;
And now he wears a loose grey
coat,
All wrinkled on
the back.
He’s got a very dirty
face,
And very shining
eyes!
He sometimes comes and sits
indoors;
He looks—and
p’r’aps is—wise.
But in a sunny flower-bed
He has his fixed
abode;
He eats the things that eat
my plants—
He is a friendly
TOAD.
[Illustration]
THREE LITTLE NEST BIRDS.
We meant to be very kind,
But if ever we find
Another soft, grey-green, moss-coated, feather-lined
nest in a hedge,
We have taken a pledge—
Susan, Jemmy, and I—with remorseful
tears, at this very minute,
That if there are eggs or little birds in it—
Robin or wren, thrush, chaffinch or linnet—
We’ll leave them there
To their mother’s care.
There were three of us—Kate, and Susan,
There were three of us, and three
of them;
Kate,—that is I,—and Susan,
and Jem.
Our mother was busy making a pie,
And theirs, we think, was up in the
sky;
But for all Susan, Jemmy, or I can tell,
She may have been getting their dinner as well.
They were left to themselves (and so
were we)
In a nest in the hedge by the willow
tree;
And when we caught sight of three red little fluff-tufted,
hazel-eyed,
open-mouthed, pink-throated heads, we
all shouted for glee.
The way we really did wrong was
this:
We took them for Mother to kiss,
And she told us to put them back;
Whilst out on the weeping-willow their
mother was crying “Alack!”
We really heard
Both what Mother told us to do, and the voice
of the mother-bird.
But we three—that is Susan
and I and Jem—
Thought we knew better than either of
them:
And in spite of our mother’s command and
the poor bird’s cry,
We determined to bring up her three little nestlings
ourselves
on the sly.
We each took one,
It did seem such excellent fun!
Susan fed hers on milk and bread,
Jem got wriggling worms for his instead.
I gave mine meat,
For, you know, I thought, “Poor darling
pet! why shouldn’t it have
roast beef to eat?”
But, oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! how we cried
When in spite of milk and bread and worms and
roast beef, the
little birds died!
It’s a terrible thing to have
heart-ache,
I thought mine would break
As I heard the mother-bird’s moan,
And looked at the grey-green, moss-coated, feather-lined
nest she had
taken such pains to make,
And her three little children dead, and as cold
as stone.
Mother said, and it’s sadly true,
“There are some wrong things one
can never undo.”
And nothing that we could do or say
Would bring life back to the birds that
day.
The bitterest tears that we could
weep
Wouldn’t wake them out of their stiff cold
sleep.
But then,
We—Susan and Jem and I—mean
never to be so selfish, and wilful,
and cruel again.
And we three have buried those other three
In a soft, green, moss-covered, flower-lined grave
at the foot of
the willow tree.
And all the leaves which its branches
shed
We think are tears because they are
dead.
DOLLY’S LULLABY.
A NURSERY RHYME
Hush-a-by, Baby! Your baby, Mamma,
No one but pussy may go where you are;
Soft-footed pussy alone may pass by,
For, if he wakens, your baby will cry.
Hush-a-by, Dolly! My
baby are you,
Yellow-haired Dolly, with
eyes of bright blue;
Though I say “Hush!”
because Mother does so,
You wouldn’t cry like
her baby, I know!
Hush-a-by, Baby! Mamma
walks about,
Sings to you softly, or rocks
you without;
If you slept sounder, then
I might walk too,
Sing to my Dolly, and rock
her like you!
Hush-a-by Dolly! Sleep
sweetly, my pet!
Dear Mamma made you this fine
berceaunette,
Muslin and rose-colour, ribbon
and lace;
When had a baby a cosier place?
Hush-a-by, Baby! the baby
who cries.
Why, dear Mamma, don’t
you shut baby’s eyes?
Pull down his wire, as I do,
you see;
Lay him by Dolly, and come
out with me.
Hush-a-by, Dolly! Mamma
will not speak;
You, my dear baby, would sleep
for a week.
Poor Mamma’s baby allows
her no rest,
Hush-a-by, Dolly, of babies
the best!
[Illustration]
A HERO TO HIS HOBBY-HORSE.
Hear me now, my hobby-horse,
my steed of prancing paces!
Time is it that you and I
won something more than races.
I have got a fine cocked hat,
with feathers proudly waving;
Out into the world we’ll
go, both death and danger braving.
Doubt not that I know the
way—the garden-gate is clapping:
Who forgot to lock it last
deserves his fingers slapping.
When they find we can’t
be found, oh won’t there be a chorus!
You and I may laugh at that,
with all the world before us.
All the world, the great green
world that lies beyond the paling!
All the sea, the great round
sea where ducks and drakes are sailing!
I a knight, my charger thou,
together we will wander
Out into that grassy waste
where dwells the Goosey Gander.
Months ago, my faithful steed,
that Goose attacked your master;
How it hissed, and how I cried!
It ran, but I ran faster!
Down upon my face I fell,
its awful wings were o’er me,
Mother came and picked me
up, and off to bed she bore me.
Months have passed, my faithful
steed, both you and I are older,
Sheathless is my wooden sword,
my heart I think is bolder.
Always ready bridled thou,
with reins of crimson leather;
Woe betide the Goose to-day
who meets us both together!
Up then now, my hobby-horse,
my steed of prancing paces!
Time it is that you and I
won something more than races.
I a knight, my charger thou,
together we will wander
Out into that grassy waste
where dwells the Goosey Gander.
Sally is the laundress, and every
Saturday
She sends our clean clothes up from the wash,
and Nurse puts them away.
Sometimes Sally is very kind, but sometimes she’s
as cross as a Turk;
When she’s good-humoured we like to go and
watch her at work.
She has tubs and a copper in the wash-house, and
a great big fire and
plenty of soap;
And outside is the drying-ground with tall posts,
and pegs bought from
the gipsies, and long lines of rope.
The laundry is indoors with another big fire,
and long tables, and a
lot of irons, and a crimping-machine;
And horses (not live ones with tails, but clothes-horses)
and the same
starch that is used by the Queen.
Sally wears pattens in the wash-house, and turns
up her sleeves, and
splashes, and rubs,
And makes beautiful white lather which foams over
the tops of the tubs,
Like waves at the seaside dashing against the
rocks, only not so
strong.
If I were Sally I should sit and blow soap-bubbles
all the day long.
Sally is angry sometimes because of the way we
dirty our frocks,
Making mud pies, and rolling down the lawn, and
climbing trees, and
scrambling over the rocks.
She says we do it on purpose, and never try to
take care;
But if things have got to go to the wash, what
can it matter how
dirty they are?
Last week Mary and I got a lot of kingcups from
the bog, and I
carried them home in my skirt;
It was the end of the week, and our frocks were
done, so we didn’t
mind about the dirt.
But Sally was as cross as two sticks, and won’t
wash our dolls’
clothes any more—so she said,—
But never mind, for we’ll ask Mamma if we
may have a real Dolls’
Wash of our own instead.
* * * * *
Mamma says we may on one condition,
to which we agree;
We’re to really wash the dolls’
clothes, and make them just
what clean clothes should be.
She says we must wash them thoroughly, which of
course we intend to do,
We mean to rub, wring, dry, mangle, starch, iron,
and air them too.
A regular wash must be splendid fun, and everybody
knows
That any one in the world can wash out a few dirty
clothes.
* * * * *
Well, we’ve had the Dolls’
Wash, but it’s only pretty good fun.
We’re glad we’ve had it, you know,
but we’re gladder still that
it’s done.
As we wanted to have as big a wash as we could,
we collected
everything we could muster,
From the dolls’ bed dimity hangings to Victoria’s
dress, which I’d
used as a duster.
It was going to the wash, and Mary and I were
house-maids—fancy
house-maids, I mean—
And I took it to dust the bookshelf, for I knew
it would come back
clean.
Well, we washed in the wash-hand-basin, which
holds a good deal, as
the things are small;
We made a glorious lather, and splashed half over
the floor; but the
* * * * *
Sally’s very kind, for she
praised our wash, and she has taken away
Victoria’s dress to do it again; and I really
must say
She was right when she said, “You see, young
ladies, a week’s wash
isn’t all play.”
Our backs ache, our faces are red, our hands are
all wrinkled, and
we’ve rubbed our fingers quite
sore;
We feel very sorry for Sally every week, and we
don’t mean to dirty
our dresses so much any more.
[Illustration]
HOUSE-BUILDING AND REPAIRS.
Father is building a new house,
but I’ve had one given to me for
my own;
Brick red, with a white window, and black where
it ought to be glass,
and the chimney yellow, like stone.
Brother Bill made me the shelves with his tool-box,
and the table I
had before, and the pestle-and-mortar;
And Mother gave me the jam-pot when it was empty;
it’s rather big, but
it’s the only pot we have that
will really hold water.
We—that is I and Jemima, my doll. (For
it’s a Doll’s House, you know,
Though some of the things are real, like the nutmeg-grater,
* * * * *
Father’s house is not finished,
though the wing is; for now the
builder says it will be all wrong if
there isn’t another
to match;
And my house isn’t done either, though it’s
nailed on, for Bill took
off the roof to make a new one of thatch.
The paint is very much scratched, but he says
that’s nothing, for it
must have had a new coat;
And he means to paint it for me, inside and out,
when he paints
his own boat.
There’s a sad hole in the floor, but Bill
says the wood is as rotten
as rotten can be:
Which was why he made such a mess of the side
with trying to put real
glass in the window, through which one
can see.
Bill says he believes that the shortest plan would
be to make a new
Doll’s House with proper rooms,
in the regular way;
Which was what the builder said to Father when
he wanted to build in
the old front; and to-day
I heard him tell him the old materials were no
good to use and weren’t
worth the expense of carting away.
I don’t know when I shall be able to play
at dolls again, for all the
things are put away in a box;
Except Jemima and the pestle-and-mortar, and they’re
in the bottom
drawer with my Sunday frocks.
I almost wish I had kept the house as it was before;
We managed very well with a painted window and
without a front door.
I don’t know what Father means to do with
his house, but if ever
mine is finished, I’ll never have
it altered any more.
FAIRY KING.
“The breeze is on the Blue-bells,
The wind is on the lea;
Stay out! stay out! my little lad,
And chase the wind with me.
If you will give yourself to me,
Within the fairy ring,
At deep midnight,
When stars are bright,
You’ll hear the Blue-bells ring—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
On slender stems they swing.
“The rustling wind, the whistling
wind,
We’ll chase him to and fro,
We’ll chase him up, we’ll chase him
down
To where the King-cups grow;
And where old Jack-o’-Lantern waits
To light us on our way,
And far behind,
Upon the wind,
The Blue-bells seem to play—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
Lest we should go astray.
“So gay that fairy music,
So jubilant those bells,
How days and weeks and months go by
No happy listener tells!
The toad-stools are with sweetmeats spread,
The new Moon lends her light,
And ringers small
Wait, one and all,
To ring with all their might—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
And welcome you to night.”
BOY.
“My mother made me promise
To be in time for tea,
‘Go home! go home!’ the breezes say,
That sigh along the lea.
I dare not give myself away;
For what would Mother do?
I wish I might
Stay out all night
At fairy games with you.
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
And hear the bells of blue.
“But Father sleeps beneath
the grass,
And Mother is alone:
And who would fill the pails, and fetch
The wood when I am gone?
And who, when little Sister ails,
Can comfort her, but me?
Her cries and tears
Would reach my ears
Through all the melody—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
Of Blue-bells on the lea.”
The sun was on the Blue-bells,
The lad was on the lea.
“Oh, wondrous bells! Oh, fairy bells!
I pray you ring to me.
I only did as Mother bade,
For tea I did not care,
And winds at night
Give more delight
Than all this noonday glare.”
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
No sound of bells was there.
BOY.
“The snow lies o’er
the Blue-bells,
A storm is on the lea;
Our hearth is warm, the fire burns bright,
The flames dance merrily.
Oh, Mother dear! I would no more
That on that summer’s day,
Within the ring,
The Fairy King
Had stolen me away—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
To where the Blue-bells play.
“Yet when the storm is loudest,
At deep midnight I dream,
And up and down upon the lea
To chase the wind I seem;
While by my side, in feathered cap,
There runs the Fairy King,
And down below,
Beneath the snow,
We hear the Blue-bells ring—
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
Such happy dreams they bring!”
AN ONLY CHILD’S TEA-PARTY.
When I go to tea with the little
Smiths, there are eight of them
there, but there’s only one of
me,
Which makes it not so easy to have a fancy tea-party
as if there were
two or three.
I had a tea-party on my birthday, but Joe Smith
says it can’t have
been a regular one,
Because as to a tea-party with only one teacup
and no teapot,
sugar-basin, cream-jug, or slop-basin,
he never heard of such
a thing under the sun.
But it was a very big teacup, and quite full of
milk and water, and,
you see,
There wasn’t anybody there who could really
drink milk and water except
Towser and me.
The dolls can only pretend, and then it washes
the paint off
their lips,
And what Charles the canary drinks isn’t
worth speaking of, for he
takes such very small sips.
Joe says a kitchen-chair isn’t a table;
but it has got four legs and
a top, so it would be if the back wasn’t
there;
And that does for Charles to perch on, and I have
to put the Prince
of Wales to lean against it, because
his legs have no joints
to sit on a chair.
[Illustration]
That’s the small doll.
I call him the Prince of Wales because he’s
the eldest son, you see;
For I’ve taken him for my brother, and he
was Mother’s doll before
I was born, so of course he is older
than me.
Towser is my real live brother, but I don’t
think he’s as old as the
Prince of Wales;
He’s a perfect darling, though he whisks
everything over he comes
near, and I tell him I don’t know
what we should do if
we all had tails.
His hair curls like mine in front, and grows short
like a lion behind,
but no one need be frightened, for he’s
as good as good;
And as to roaring like a real menagerie lion,
or eating people up,
I don’t believe he would if he
could.
He has his tea out of the saucer after I’ve
had mine out of the cup;
You see I am sure to leave some for him, but if
I let him begin first
he would drink it all up.
The big doll Godmamma gave me this birthday, and
the chair she gave me
the year before.
(I haven’t many toys, but I take great care
of them, and every birthday
I shall have more and more.)
You’ve no idea what a beautiful doll she
is, and when I pinch her in
the middle, she can squeak;
It quite frightened Towser, for he didn’t
know that any of us but he
and I and Charles were able to speak.
I’ve taken her for my only sister, for of
course I may take anybody
I choose;
I’ve called her Cinderella, because I’m
so fond of the story, and
because she’s got real shoes.
I don’t feel so only now there are
so many of us; for, counting
Cinderella there are five,—
She, and I, and Towser, and Charles, and the Prince
of Wales—and
three of us are really alive;
And four of us can speak, and I’m sure the
Prince of Wales is
wonderful for his size;
For his things (at least he’s only got one
[Illustration]
PAPA POODLE.
Can any one look so wise, and have
so little in his head?
How long will it be, Papa Poodle, before you have
learned to read?
You were called Papa Poodle because you took care
of me when I was
a baby:
And now I can read words of three syllables, and
you sit with a book
before you like a regular gaby.
You’ve not read a word since I put you in
that corner ten minutes ago;
Bill and I’ve fought the battle of Waterloo
since dinner, and you’ve
not learned BA BE BI BO.
Here am I doing the whole British Army by myself,
for Bill is obliged
to be the French;
And I’ve come away to hear you say your
lesson, and left Bill waiting
for me in the trench.
And there you sit, with a curly white wig, like
the Lord Chief Justice,
and as grave a face,
Looking the very picture of goodness and wisdom,
when you’re really in
the deepest disgrace.
Those woolly locks of yours grow thicker and thicker,
Papa Poodle.
Does the wool tangle inside as well as outside
your head? and is it
that which makes you such a noodle?
You seem so clever at some things, and so stupid
at others, and I keep
wondering why;
But I’m afraid the truth is, Papa Poodle,
that you’re uncommonly sly.
You did no spelling-lessons last week, for you
were out from morning
till night,
Except when you slunk in, like a dirty door-mat
on legs, and with one
ear bleeding from a fight,
Looking as if you’d no notion what o’clock
it was, and had come home
to see.
But your watch keeps very good meal-time,
Papa Poodle, for you’re
“In my young days,”
the grandmother said (Nodding her head,
Where cap and curls were as white as snow),
“In my young days, when we used to go
Rambling,
Scrambling;
Each little dirty hand in hand,
Like a chain of daisies, a comical band
Of neighbours’ children, seriously straying,
Really and truly going a-Maying,
My mother would bid us linger,
And lifting a slender, straight forefinger,
Would say—
’Little Kings and Queens of the May,
Listen to me!
If you want to be
Every one of you very good
In that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful wood,
Where the little birds’ heads get so turned
with delight,
That some of them sing all night:
Whatever you pluck,
Leave some for good luck;
Picked from the stalk, or pulled up by the root,
From overhead, or from underfoot,
Water-wonders of pond or brook;
Wherever you look,
And whatever you find—
Leave something behind:
Some for the Naiads,
Some for the Dryads,
And a bit for the Nixies, and the Pixies.’”
“After all these years,”
the grandame said,
Lifting
her head,
“I think I can hear
my mother’s voice
Above
all other noise,
Saying, ’Hearken, my
child!
There is nothing more destructive
and wild,
No wild bull with his horns,
No wild-briar with clutching
thorns,
No pig that routs in your
garden-bed,
No robber with ruthless tread,
More
reckless and rude,
And wasteful of all things
lovely and good,
Than a child, with the face
of a boy and the ways of a bear,
Who
doesn’t care;
Or some little ignorant minx
Who
never thinks.
Now I never knew so stupid
an elf,
That he couldn’t think
and care for himself.
Oh, little sisters and little
brothers,
Think for others, and care
for others!
And of all that your little
fingers find,
“We were very young,”
the grandmother said,
Smiling and shaking her head;
“And when one is young,
One listens with half an ear, and speaks with
a hasty tongue;
So with shouted Yeses,
And promises sealed with kisses,
Hand-in-hand we started again,
A chubby chain,
Stretching the whole wide width of the lane;
Or in broken links of twos and threes,
For greater ease
Of rambling,
And scrambling,
By the stile and the road,
That goes to the beautiful, beautiful wood;
By the brink of the gloomy pond,
To the top of the sunny hill beyond,
By hedge and by ditch, by marsh and by mead,
By little byways that lead
To mysterious bowers;
Or to spots where, for those who know,
There grow,
In certain out-o’-way nooks, rare ferns
and uncommon flowers.
There were flowers everywhere,
Censing the summer air,
Till the giddy bees went rolling home
To their honeycomb,
And when we smelt at our posies,
The little fairies inside the flowers rubbed coloured
dust on
our noses,
Or pricked us till we cried aloud for snuffing
the dear dog-roses.
But above all our noise,
I kept thinking I heard my mother’s
voice.
But it may have been only a fairy joke,
For she was at home, and I sometimes thought it
was
really the flowers that spoke.
From the Foxglove in its pride,
To the Shepherd’s Purse by the
bare road-side;
From the snap-jack heart of the Starwort frail,
To meadows full of Milkmaids pale,
And Cowslips loved by the nightingale.
Rosette of the tasselled Hazel-switch,
Sky-blue star of the ditch;
Dandelions like mid-day suns;
Bindweed that runs;
Butter and Eggs with the gaping lips,
Sweet Hawthorn that hardens to haws, and Roses
that die into hips;
Lords-with-their-Ladies cheek-by-jowl,
In purple surcoat and pale-green cowl;
Family groups of Primroses fair;
Orchids rare;
Velvet Bee-orchis that never can sting,
Butterfly-orchis which never takes wing,
Robert-the-Herb with strange sweet scent,
And crimson leaf when summer is spent:
Clustering neighbourly,
All this gay company,
Said to us seemingly—
’Pluck, children, pluck!
But leave some for good luck:
Some for the Naiads,
Some for the Dryads,
And a bit for the Nixies, and the Pixies,’”
“I was but a maid,”
the grandame said,
“When my mother was dead;
And many a time have I stood.
In that beautiful wood,
To dream that through every woodland noise,
Through the cracking
Of twigs and the bending of bracken,
Through the rustling
Of leaves in the breeze,
And the bustling
Of dark-eyed, tawny-tailed squirrels flitting
about the trees,
Through the purling and trickling cool
Of the streamlet that feeds the pool,
I could hear her voice.
Should I wonder to hear it? Why?
Are the voices of tender wisdom apt to die?
And now, though I’m very old,
And the air, that used to feel fresh, strikes
chilly and cold,
On a sunny day when I potter
About the garden, or totter
To the seat from whence I can see, below,
The marsh and the meadows I used to know,
Bright with the bloom of the flowers that blossomed
there long ago;
Then, as if it were yesterday,
I fancy I hear them say—
’Pluck, children, pluck,
But leave some for good luck;
Picked from the stalk, or pulled up by the root,
From overhead, or from underfoot,
Water-wonders of pond or brook;
Wherever you look,
And whatever your little fingers find,
Leave something behind:
Some for the Naiads,
And some for the Dryads,
And a bit for the Nixies, and the Pixies.’”
The following note was given in Aunt Judy’s Magazine, June 1880, when “Grandmother’s Spring” first appeared:—“It may interest old readers of Aunt Judy’s Magazine to know that ‘Leave some for the Naiads and the Dryads’ was a favourite phrase with Mr. Alfred Gatty, and is not merely the charge of an imaginary mother to her ‘blue-eyed banditti.’ Whether my mother invented the expression for our benefit, or whether she only quoted it, I do not know. I only remember its use as a check on the indiscriminate ‘collecting’ and ‘grubbing’ of a large family; a mystic warning not without force to fetter the same fingers in later life, with all the power of a pious
tradition.”—J.H.E.
[Illustration]
BIG SMITH.
Are you a Giant, great big man, or is your real name Smith?
Nurse says you’ve got a hammer that you hit bad children with.
I’m good to-day, and so I’ve come to see if it is true
That you can turn a red-hot rod into a horse’s shoe.
Why do you make the horses’
shoes of iron instead of leather?
Is it because they are allowed
to go out in bad weather?
If horses should be shod with
iron, Big Smith, will you shoe mine?
For now I may not take him
out, excepting when it’s fine.
Although he’s not a
real live horse, I’m very fond of him;
His harness won’t take
off and on, but still it’s new and trim.
His tail is hair, he has four
legs, but neither hoofs nor heels;
I think he’d seem more
like a horse without these yellow wheels.
They say that Dapple-grey’s
not yours, but don’t you wish he were?
My horse’s coat is only
paint, but his is soft grey hair;
His face is big and kind,
like yours, his forelock white as snow—
Shan’t you be sorry
when you’ve done his shoes and he must go?
I do so wish, Big Smith, that
I might come and live with you;
To rake the fire, to heat
the rods, to hammer two and two.
To be so black, and not to
have to wash unless I choose;
To pat the dear old horses,
and to mend their poor old shoes.
When all the world is dark
at night, you work among the stars,
A shining shower of fireworks
beat out of red-hot bars.
I’ve seen you beat,
I’ve heard you sing, when I was going to bed;
And now your face and arms
looked black, and now were glowing red.
The more you work, the more
you sing, the more the bellows roar;
The falling stars, the flying
sparks, stream shining more and more.
You hit so hard, you look
so hot, and yet you never tire;
It must be very nice to be
allowed to play with fire.
I long to beat and sing and
shine, as you do, but instead
I put away my horse, and Nurse
puts me away to bed.
I wonder if you go to bed;
I often think I’ll keep
Awake and see, but, though
I try, I always fall asleep.
I know it’s very silly,
but I sometimes am afraid
Of being in the dark alone,
especially in bed.
But when I see your forge-light
come and go upon the wall,
And hear you through the window,
I am not afraid at all.
I often hear a trotting horse,
I sometimes hear it stop;
I hold my breath—you
stay your song—it’s at the blacksmith’s
shop.
Before it goes, I’m
apt to fall asleep, Big Smith, it’s true;
But then I dream of hammering
that horse’s shoes with you!
They’ve taken the cosy
bed away
That I made myself with the
Shetland shawl,
And set me a hamper of scratchy
hay,
By that great black stove
in the entrance-hall.
[Illustration]
I won’t sleep there;
I’m resolved on that!
They may think I will, but
they little know
There’s a soft persistence
about a cat
That even a little kitten
can show.
I wish I knew what to do but
pout,
And spit at the dogs and refuse
my tea;
My fur’s feeling rough,
and I rather doubt
Whether stolen sausage agrees
with me.
On the drawing-room sofa they’ve
closed the door,
They’ve turned me out
of the easy-chairs;
I wonder it never struck me
before
That they make their beds
for themselves up-stairs.
* * * * *
I’ve found a crib where
they won’t find me,
Though they’re crying
“Kitty!” all over the house.
Hunt for the Slipper! and
riddle-my-ree!
A cat can keep as still as
a mouse.
It’s rather unwise perhaps
to purr,
But they’ll never think
of the wardrobe-shelves.
I’m happy in every hair
of my fur;
They may keep the hamper and
hay themselves.
[Illustration]
THE MILL STREAM.
One of a hundred little rills—
Born
in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the
earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang—“Who
so mighty as I?
The
farther I flow
The
bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little
rill,
Now turn the big wheel of
the mill,
Though the surly slave would
rather stand still.
Old,
and weed-hung, and grim,
I
am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and
dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the
monster goes.
And
turns faster and faster,
As
he learns who is master,
Round
and round,
Till
the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he
stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine
sacks of flour,
I
feel my power;
But when the children enjoy
their food,
I know I’m not only
great but good!”
Furthermore sang the brook—
“Who loves the beautiful, let him look!
Garlanding me in shady spots
The Forget-me-nots
Are blue as the summer sky:
Who so lovely as I?
My King-cups of gold
Shine from the shade of the alders old,
Stars of the stream!—
At the water-rat’s threshold they gleam.
From below
The Frog-bit spreads me its blossoms of snow,
And in masses
The Willow-herb, the flags, and the grasses,
Reeds, rushes, and sedges,
Flower and fringe and feather my edges.
To be beautiful is not amiss,
But to be loved is more than this;
And who more sought than I,
By all that run or swim or crawl or fly?
Sober shell-fish and frivolous gnats,
Tawny-eyed water-rats;
The poet with rippling rhymes so fluent,
Boys with boats playing truant,
Cattle wading knee-deep for water;
And the flower-plucking parson’s daughter.
Down in my depths dwell creeping things
Who rise from my bosom on rainbow wings,
For—too swift for a school-boy’s
prize—
Hither and thither above me dart the prismatic-hued
dragon-flies.
At my side the lover lingers,
And with lack-a-daisical fingers,
The Weeping Willow, woe-begone,
Strives to stay me as I run on.”
There came an hour
When all this beauty and love and power
Did seem
But a small thing to that Mill Stream.
And then his cry
Was, “Why, oh! why
Am I thus surrounded
With checks and limits, and bounded
By bank and border
To keep me in order,
Against my will?
I, who was born to be free and unfettered—a
mountain rill!
But for these jealous banks, the good
Of my gracious and fertilizing flood
A day did dawn at last,
When the spirits of the storm and the blast,
Breaking the bands of the winter’s frost
and snow,
Swept from the mountain source of the stream,
and flooded the
valley below.
Dams were broken and weirs came down;
Cottage and mill, country and town,
Shared in the general inundation,
And the following desolation.
Then the Mill Stream rose in its might,
And burst out of bounds to left and to
right,
Rushed to the beautiful Beech,
In the meadow far out of reach.
But with such torrents the poor tree died,
Torn up by the roots, and laid on its side.
The cattle swam till they sank,
Trying to find a bank.
Never more shall the broken water-wheel
Grind the corn to make the meal,
To make the children’s bread.
The miller was dead.
When the setting sun
Looked to see what the Mill Stream had done
In its hour
Of unlimited power,
And what was left when that had passed by,
Behold the channel was stony and dry.
In uttermost ruin
The Mill Stream had been its own undoing.
Furthermore it had drowned its friend:
This was the end.
[Illustration]
BOY AND SQUIRREL.
Oh boy, down there, I can’t believe that what they say is true!
We squirrels surely cannot have an enemy in you;
We have so much in common, my dear friend, it seems to me
That I can really feel for you, and you can feel for me.
Some human beings might not
understand the life we lead;
If we asked Dr. Birch to play,
no doubt he’d rather read;
He hates all scrambling restlessness,
and chattering, scuffling noise;
If he could catch us we should
fare no better than you boys.
Fine ladies, too, whose flounces
catch and tear on every stump,
What joy have they in jagged
pines, who neither skip nor jump?
Miss Mittens never saw my
tree-top home—so unlike hers;
What wonder if her only thought
of squirrels is of furs?
But you, dear boy, you know
so well the bliss of climbing trees,
Of scrambling up and sliding
down, and rocking in the breeze,
Of cracking nuts and chewing
cones, and keeping cunning hoards,
And all the games and all
the sport and fun a wood affords.
It cannot be that you would make a prisoner of me, Who hate yourself to be cooped up, who love so to be free; An extra hour indoors, I know, is punishment to you; You make me twirl a tiny cage? It never can be true!
Yet I’ve a wary grandfather,
whose tail is white as snow.
He thinks he knows a lot of
things we young ones do not know;
He says we’re safe with
Doctor Birch, because he is so blind,
And that Miss Mittens would
not hurt a fly, for she is kind.
But you, dear boy, who know
my ways, he bids me fly from you,
He says my life and liberty
are lost unless I do;
That you, who fear the Doctor’s
cane, will fling big sticks at me,
And tear me from my forest
home, and from my favourite tree.
The more we think of what
he says, the more we’re sure it’s “chaff,”
We sit beneath the shadow
of our bushy tails and laugh;
Hey, presto! Friend,
come up, and let us hide and seek and play,
If you could spring as well
as climb, what fun we’d have to-day!
Oh, how greedy you look as
you stare at my plate,
Your mouth waters
so, and your big tail is drumming
Flop! flop! flop! on the carpet,
and yet if you’ll wait,
When we have quite
finished, your dinner is coming.
Yes! I know what you
mean, though you don’t speak a word;
You say that you
wish that I kindly would let you
Take your meals with the family,
which is absurd,
And on a tall
chair like a gentleman set you.
But how little you think,
my dear dog, when you talk;
You’ve no
“table manners,” you bolt meat, you gobble;
And how could you eat bones
with a knife, spoon, and fork?
You would be in
a most inconvenient hobble.
And yet, once on a time it
is certainly true,
My own manners
wanted no little refining;
For I gobbled, and spilled,
and was greedy like you,
And had no idea
of good manners when dining.
So that when I consider the
tricks you have caught,
To sit or shake
paws with the utmost good breeding,
I must own it quite possible
you may be taught
The use of a plate,
and a nice style of feeding.
Therefore try to learn manners,
and eat as I do;
Don’t glare
at the joint, and as soon as you’re able
To behave like the rest, you
shall feed with us too,
And dine like
a gentleman sitting at table.
[Illustration]
A SWEET LITTLE DEAR
I always was a remarkable
child; so old for my age, and such a
sensitive nature!—Mamma often
says so.
And I’m the sweetest, little dear in my
blue ribbons, and quite a
picture in my Pompadour hat!—Mrs.
Brown told her so on
BLUE AND RED:
OR, THE DISCONTENTED LOBSTER.
Permit me, Reader, to make my bow,
And allow
Me to humbly commend to your tender mercies
The hero of these simple verses.
By domicile, of the British Nation;
By birth and family, a Crustacean.
One’s hero should have a name that rare
is;
And his was Homarus, but—Vulgaris!
A Lobster, who dwelt with several others,—
His sisters and brothers,—
In a secluded but happy home,
Under the salt sea’s foam.
It lay
At the outermost point of a rocky bay.
A sandy, tide-pooly, cliff-bound cove,
“It
is sweet to be
At home in the deep, deep
sea.
It is very pleasant to have
the power
To take the air on dry land
for an hour;
And when the mid-day midsummer
sun
Is toasting the fields as
brown as a bun,
And the sands are baking,
it’s very nice
To feel as cool as a strawberry
ice
In one’s own particular
damp sea-cave,
Dipping one’s feelers
in each green wave.
It is good, for a very rapacious
maw,
When storm-tossed morsels
come to the claw;
And ‘the better to see
with’ down below,
To wash one’s eyes in
the ebb and flow
Of the tides that come and
the tides that go.”
So sang the Lobsters, thankful
for their mercies,
All but the hero of these
simple verses.
Now
a hero—
If he’s
worth the grand old name—
Though temperature may change
from boiling-point to zero
Should keep his
temper all the same:
Courageous and content in
his estate,
And proof against the spiteful
blows of Fate.
It, therefore, troubles me
to have to say,
That with this
Lobster it was never so;
Whate’er the weather
or the sort of day,
No matter if the
tide were high or low,
Whatever happened he was never
pleased,
And not himself alone, but
all his kindred teased.
“Oh! oh!
What a world of woe
We flounder about in, here below!
Oh dear! oh dear!
It is too, too dull, down here!
I haven’t the slightest patience
With any of my relations;
I take no interest whatever
In things they call curious and clever.
And, for love of dear truth I state it,
As for my Home—I hate it!
I’m convinced I was formed for a larger
sphere,
And am utterly out of my element here.”
Then his brothers and sisters said,
Each solemnly shaking his and her head,
“You put your complaints in most beautiful
verse,
And yet we are sure,
That, in spite of all you have to endure,
You might go much farther and fare much worse.
We wish you could live in a higher sphere,
But we think you might live happily here.”
“I don’t live, I only exist,”
he said,
“Be pleased to look upon me as dead.”
And he swam to his cave, and took to his bed.
He sulked so long that the sisters cried,
“Perhaps he has really and truly died.”
But the brothers went to the cave to peep,
For they said, “Perhaps he is only asleep.”
They found him, far too busy to talk,
With a very large piece of bad salt pork.
“Dear Brother, what luck you have had to-day!
Can you tell us, pray,
Is there any more pork afloat in the bay?”
But not a word would my hero say,
Except to repeat, with sad persistence,
“This is not life, it’s only existence.”
One day there came to the
fishing village
An individual bent on pillage;
But a robber whom true scientific
feeling
May find guilty of picking,
but not of stealing.
He picked the
yellow poppies on the cliffs;
He picked the
feathery seaweeds in the pools;
He picked the
odds and ends from nets and skiffs;
He picked the
brains of all the country fools.
He dried the poppies for his
own herbarium,
And caught the Lobsters for
a seaside town aquarium.
“Tank No. 20” is
deep,
“Tank No. 20” is cool,
For clever contrivances always keep
The water fresh in the pool;
And a very fine plate-glass window is free to
the public view,
Through which you can stare at the passers-by
and the passers-by
stare at you.
Said my hero, “This is a great variety
From those dull old rocks, where we’d no
society.”
For the primal cause of incidents,
One often hunts about,
When it’s only a coincidence
That matters so turned out.
And I do not know the reason
Or the reason I would tell—
But it may have been the season—
Why my hero chose this moment for casting off
his shell.
He had hitherto been dressed[1]
(And so had all the rest)
In purplish navy blue from top to toe!
But now his coat was new,
It was of every shade of blue
Between azure and the deepest indigo;
And his sisters kept telling him, till they were
tired,
There never was any one so much admired.
My hero was happy at last, you will say?
So he was, dear Reader—two nights and a day;
Then, as he and his relatives lay,
Each at the mouth of his mock
Cave in the face of a miniature rock,
They saw, descending the opposite cliff,
By jerks spasmodic of elbows stiff;
Now hurriedly slipping, now seeming calmer,
With the ease and the grace of a hog in armour,
And as solemn as any ancient palmer,
No less than nine
Exceedingly fine
And full-grown lobsters, all in a line.
But the worst of the matter remains to be said.
These nine big lobsters were all of them red.[2]
And when they got safe to the floor of the tank,—
For which they had chiefly good luck to thank,—
They settled their cumbersome coats of mail,
And every lobster tucked his tail
Neatly under him as he sat
In a circle of nine for a cosy chat.
They seemed to be sitting hand in hand,
As shoulder to shoulder they sat in the sand,
And waved their antennae in calm rotation,
Apparently holding a consultation.
But what were the feelings of Master Blue Shell?
Oh, gentle Reader! how shall I tell?
[Footnote 1: The colours of lobsters vary a good deal in various localities. Homarus vulgaris, the common lobster, is spotted, and, on the upper part, more or less of a bluish black. I once saw a lobster that had just got a new shell, and was of every lovely shade of blue and violet.]
[Footnote 2: Palurinus vulgaris, the spiny lobster, has no true claws, but huge hairy antennae. These lobsters are red during their lifetime! I have seen them (in the Crystal Palace Aquarium) seated exactly as here described, with blue lobsters watching them from niches of the rocky sides of the tank, where they looked like blue-jerseyed smugglers at the mouths of caves.]
From the moment that those
Nine he saw,
He never could bear his blue
coat more.
“Oh, Brothers in misfortune!”
he said,
“Did you ever see any
lobsters so grand,
As those who sit down there
in the sand?
Why were we born at all, since
not one of us all was born red?”
“Dear Brother, indeed,
this is quite a whim.”
(So his brothers and sisters
reasoned with him;
And, being exceedingly cultivated,
The case with remarkable fairness
stated.)
“Red is a primary colour,
it’s true,
But
so is Blue;
And we all of us think, dear
Brother,
That one is quite as good
as the other.
A swaggering soldier’s
a saucy varlet,
Though he looks uncommonly
well in scarlet.
No doubt there’s much
to be said
For a field of poppies of
glowing red;
For fiery rifts in sunset
skies,
Roses and blushes and red
sunrise;
For a glow on the Alps, and
the glow of a forge,
A foxglove bank in a woodland
gorge;
Sparks that are struck from
red-hot bars,
The sun in a mist, and the
red star Mars;
Flowers of countless shades
and shapes,
Matadors’, judges’,
and gipsies’ capes;
The red-haired king who was
killed in the wood,
Robin Redbreast and little
Red Riding Hood;
Autumn maple, and winter holly,
Red-letter days of wisdom
or folly;
The scarlet ibis, rose cockatoos,
Cardinal’s gloves, and
Karen’s shoes;
Coral and rubies, and huntsmen’s
pink;
Red, in short, is splendid,
we think.
But, then, we don’t
think there’s a pin to choose;
If the Guards are handsome,
so are the Blues.
It’s a narrow choice
between Sappers and Gunners.
You sow blue beans, and rear
scarlet runners.
Then think of the blue of
a mid-day sky,
Of the sea, and the hills,
and a Scotchman’s eye;
Of peacock’s feathers,
forget-me-nots,
Worcester china and “jap”
tea-pots.
The blue that the western
sky wears casually,
Sapphire, turquoise, and lapis-lazuli.
What
can look smarter
Than the broad blue ribbon
of Knights of the Garter?
I don’t think I ever met
with a book
The evil genius of which was a cook;
But it thus befell,
In the tale I have the honour to tell;
For as he was fretting and fuming about,
A fisherman fished my hero out;
And in process of time, he heard a voice,
Which made him rejoice.
The voice was the cook’s, and what she said
Was, “He’ll soon come out a beautiful
red.”
He was put in the pot,
The water was very hot;
The less we say about this the better,
It was all fulfilled to the very letter.
He did become a beautiful red,
But then—which he did not expect—he
was dead!
Some gentle readers cannot well
endure
To see the ill end of a bad beginning;
And hope against hope for a nicer cure
For naughty heroes than to leave off sinning.
And yet persisting in behaving badly,
Do what one will, does commonly end sadly.
But things in general are
so much mixed,
That every case
must stand upon its merits;
And folks’ opinions
are so little fixed,
And no one knows
the least what he inherits—
I should be glad to shed some
parting glory
Upon the hero of this simple
story.
It seems to me a mean end
to a ballad,
But the truth is, he was made
into salad;
It’s not how one’s
hero should end his days,
In
a mayonnaise,
But I’m told that he
looked exceedingly nice,
With cream-coloured sauce,
and pale-green lettuce and ice.
I confess that if he’d been my relation,
This would not afford me any consolation;
For I feel (though one likes to speak well of the dead)
That it must be said,
He need not have died so early lamented,
If he’d been content to live contented.
P.S.—His claws were
raised to very high stations;
They keep the earwigs from our carnations.
THE YELLOW FLY.
A TALE WITH A STING IN IT.
[Illustration]
Ah!
There you are!
I was certain I heard a strange voice from afar.
Mamma calls me a pup, but I’m wiser than
she;
One ear cocked and I hear, half an eye and I see;
Wide-awake though I doze, not a thing escapes
me.
Yes!
Let me guess:
It’s the stable-boy’s hiss as he wisps
down Black Bess.
It sounds like a kettle beginning to sing,
Or a bee on a pane, or a moth on the wing,
Or my master’s peg-top, just let loose from
the string.
[Illustration]
Well!
Now I smell,
I don’t know who you are, and I’m
puzzled to tell.
You look like a fly dressed in very gay clothes,
But I blush to have troubled my mid-day repose
For a creature not worth half a twitch of my nose.
[Illustration]
How now?
Bow, wow, wow!
The insect imagines we’re playing, I vow!
If I pat you, I promise you’ll find it too
hard.
Be off! when a watch-dog like me is on guard,
Big or little, no stranger’s allowed in
the yard.
Eh?
“Come away!”
My dear little master, is that what you say?
I am greatly obliged for your kindness and cares,
But I really can manage my own small affairs,
And banish intruders who give themselves airs.
[Illustration]
Snap!
Yap! yap! yap!
You defy me?—you pigmy, you insolent
scrap!
What!—this to my teeth, that have worried
a score
Of the biggest rats bred in the granary floor!
Come on, and be swallowed! I spare you no
more!
Help!
Yelp! yelp! yelp!
Little master, pray save an unfortunate whelp,
Who began the attack, but is now in retreat,
Having shown all his teeth, just escapes on his
feet,
And is trusting to you to make safety complete.
[Illustration]
Oh!
Let me go!
My poor eye! my poor ear! my poor tail! my poor
toe!
Pray excuse my remarks, for I meant no such thing.
Don’t trouble to come—oh, the
brute’s on the wing!
I’d no notion, I’m sure, there were
flies that could sting.
Dear me!
I can’t see.
My nose burns, my limbs shake, I’m as ill
as can be.
I was never in such an undignified plight.
Mamma told me, and now I suppose she was right;
One should know what one’s after before
one shows fight.
[Illustration]
CANADA HOME.
Some Homes are where flowers
for ever blow,
The sun shining
hotly the whole year round;
But our Home glistens with
six months of snow,
Where frost without
wind heightens every sound.
And
Home is Home wherever it is,
When
we’re all together and nothing amiss.
Yet Willy is old enough to
recall
A Home forgotten
by Eily and me;
He says that we left it five
years since last Fall,
And came sailing,
sailing, right over the sea.
But
Home is Home wherever it is,
When
we’re all together and nothing amiss.
Our other Home was for ever
green,
A green, green
isle in a blue, blue sea,
With sweet flowers such as
we never have seen;
And Willy tells
all this to Eily and me.
But
Home is Home wherever it is,
When
we’re all together and nothing amiss.
He says, “What fine
fun when we all go back!”
But Canada Home
is very good fun
When Pat’s little sled
flies along the smooth track,
Or spills in the
snowdrift that shines in the sun.
For
Home is Home wherever it is,
When
we’re all together and nothing amiss.
Some day I should dearly love,
it is true,
To sail to the
old Home over the sea;
But only if Father and Mother
went too,
With Willy and
Patrick and Eily and me.
For
Home is Home wherever it is,
When
we’re all together and nothing amiss.
THE POET AND THE BROOK.
A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.
A little Brook, that babbled under
grass,
Once saw a Poet pass—
A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes,
Who went his weary way with woeful sighs.
And on another time,
This Brook did hear that Poet read his rueful
rhyme.
Now in the poem that he read,
This Poet said—
“Oh! little Brook that babblest under grass!
(Ah me! Alack! Ah, well-a-day!
Alas!)
Say, are you what you seem?
Or is your life, like other lives, a dream?
What time your babbling mocks my mortal moods,
Fair Naiad of the stream!
And are you, in good sooth,
Could purblind poesy perceive the truth,
A water-sprite,
Who sometimes, for man’s dangerous delight,
Puts on a human form and face,
To wear them with a superhuman grace?
“When this poor Poet turns
his bending back,
(Ah me! Ah, well-a-day! Alas!
Alack!)
Say, shall you rise from out your grassy bed,
With wreathed forget-me-nots about your head,
And sing and play,
And wile some wandering wight out of his way,
To lead him with your witcheries astray?
(Ah me! Alas! Alack! Ah, well-a-day!)
Would it be safe for me
That fateful form to see?”
(Alas! Alack! Ah, well-a-day!
Ah me!)
So far the Poet read his pleasing
strain,
Then it began to rain:
He closed his book.
“Farewell, fair Nymph!” he cried,
as with a lingering look
His homeward way he took;
And nevermore that Poet saw that Brook.
The Brook passed several days in
anxious expectation
Of transformation
Into a lovely nymph bedecked with flowers;
And longed impatiently to prove those powers—
Those dangerous powers—of witchery
and wile,
That should all mortal men mysteriously beguile;
For life as running water lost its charm
Before the exciting hope of doing so much harm.
And yet the hope seemed vain;
Despite the Poet’s strain,
Though the days came and went, and went and came,
The seasons changed, the Brook remained the same.
The Brook was almost tired
Of vainly hoping to become a Naiad;
When on a certain Summer’s day,
Dame Nature came that way,
Busy as usual,
With great and small;
Who, at the water-side
Dipping her clever fingers in the tide,
Out of the mud drew creeping things,
And, smiling on them, gave them radiant wings.
Now when the poor Brook murmured, “Mother
dear!”
Dame Nature bent to hear,
And the sad stream poured all its woes into her
sympathetic ear,
Crying,—“Oh, bounteous Mother!
Do not do more for one child than another;
If of a dirty grub or two
(Dressing them up in royal blue)
You make so many shining Demoiselles,[3]
Change me as well;
Uplift me also from this narrow place,
Where life runs on at such a petty pace;
Give me a human form, dear Dame, and then
See how I’ll flit, and flash, and fascinate
the race of men!”
[Footnote 3: The “Demoiselle”
Dragon-fly, a well-known slender
variety (Libellula), with body of brilliant
blue.]
Then Mother Nature, who is
wondrous wise,
Did that deluded little Brook
advise
To be contented with its own
fair face,
And
with a good and cheerful grace,
Run, as of yore, on its appointed
race,
Safe both from giving and
receiving harms;
Outliving human lives, outlasting
human charms.
But good advice, however kind,
Is thrown away upon a made-up
mind,
And this was all that babbling
Brook would say—
“Give me a human face
and form, if only for a day!”
Then quoth Dame Nature:—“Oh,
my foolish child!
Ere I fulfil a wish so wild,
Since I am kind and you are ignorant,
This much I grant:
You shall arise from out your grassy bed,
And gathered to the waters overhead
Shall thus and then
Look down and see the world, and all the ways
of men!”
Scarce had the Dame
Departed to the place from whence she came,
When in that very hour,
The sun burst forth with most amazing power.
Dame Nature bade him blaze, and he obeyed;
He drove the fainting flocks into the shade,
He ripened all the flowers into seed,
He dried the river, and he parched the mead;
Then on the Brook he turned his burning eye,
Which rose and left its narrow channel dry;
And, climbing up by sunbeams to the sky,
Became a snow-white cloud, which softly floated
by.
It was a glorious Autumn
day,
And all the world with red and gold was gay;
When, as this cloud athwart the heavens
did pass,
Lying below, it saw a Poet on the grass,
The very Poet who had such a stir made,
To prove the Brook was a fresh-water mermaid.
And now,
Holding his book above his corrugated brow—
He read aloud,
And thus apostrophized the passing cloud:
“Oh, snowy-breasted Fair!
Mysterious messenger of upper air!
Can you be of those female forms so dread,[4]
[Footnote 4: The Walkyrie
in Teutonic mythology, whose office it is to
bear the souls of fallen heroes
from the field of battle.]
But very soon,
Upon a frosty winter’s noon,
The little cloud returned below,
Falling in flakes of snow;
Falling most softly on the floor most hard
Of an old manor-house court-yard.
And as it hastened to the earth again,
The children sang behind the window-pane:
“Old woman, up yonder, plucking your
geese,
Quickly pluck them, and quickly cease;
Throw down the feathers, and when you have done,
We shall have fun—we shall have
fun.”
The snow had fallen, when with song and shout
The girls and boys came out;
Six sturdy little men and maids,
Carrying heather-brooms, and wooden spades,
Who swept and shovelled up the fallen snow,
Which whimpered,—“Oh! oh! oh!
Oh, Mother, most severe!
Pity me lying here,
I’m shaken all to pieces with that storm,
Raise me and clothe me in a human form.”
They swept up much, they shovelled
up more,
There never was such a snow-man before!
They built him bravely with might and main,
There never will be such a snow-man again!
His legs were big, his body was bigger,
They made him a most imposing figure;
His eyes were large and as black as coal,
For a cinder was placed in each round hole.
And the sight of his teeth would have made yours
ache,
Being simply the teeth of an ancient rake.
They smoothed his forehead, they patted his back,
There wasn’t a single unsightly crack;
And when they had given the final pat,
They crowned his head with the scare-crow’s
hat.
And so
The Brook—the Cloud—the
Snow,
Got its own way after so many days,
And did put on a human form and face.
But whether
The situation pleased it altogether;
If it is nice
To be a man of snow and ice;
Whether it feels
Painful, when one congeals;
How this man felt
When he began to melt;
Whether he wore his human form and face
With any extraordinary grace;
If many mortals fell
As victims to the spell;
Or if,
As he stood, stark and stiff,
With a bare broomstick in his arms,
And not a trace of transcendental charms,
That man of snow
Grew wise enough to know
That the Brook’s hopes were but a Poet’s
dream,
And well content to be again a stream,
On the first sunny day,
Flowed quietly away;
Or what the end was—You must ask the
Poet,
I don’t know it.
[Illustration]
A SOLDIER’S CHILDREN.
Our home used to be in a hut in
the dear old Camp, with lots of bands
and trumpets and bugles and Dead Marches,
and three times
a day there was a gun,
But now we live in View Villa at the top of the
village, and it isn’t
nearly such fun.
We never see any soldiers, except one day we saw
a Volunteer, and we
ran after him as hard as ever we could
go, for we thought he
looked rather brave;
But there’s only been one funeral since
we came, an ugly black thing
with no Dead March or Union Jack, and
not even a firing party
at the grave.
There is a man in uniform to bring the letters,
but he’s nothing like
our old Orderly, Brown;
I told him, through the hedge, “Your facings
are dirty, and you’d
have to wear your belt if my father was
at home,” and oh,
how he did frown!
But things can’t be expected to go right
when Old Father’s away, and
he’s gone to the war;
Which is why we play at soldiers and fighting
battles more than ever
we did before.
And I try to keep things together: every
morning I have a parade of
myself and Dick,
To see that we are clean, and to drill him and
do sword-exercise with
poor Grandpapa’s stick.
Grandpapa’s dead, so he doesn’t want
it now, and Dick’s too young for
a real tin sword like mine:
He’s so young he won’t make up his
mind whether he’ll go into the
Artillery or the Line.
I want him to be a gunner, for his frock’s
dark blue, and Captain
Powder gave us a wooden gun with an elastic
that shoots
quite a big ball.
It’s nonsense Dick’s saying he’d
like to be a Chaplain, for that’s
not being a soldier at all.
Besides, he always wants to be Drum-Major when
we’ve funerals, to
stamp the stick and sing RUM—TUM—TUM—
To the Dead March in Saul (that’s
the name of the tune, and you play
it on a drum).
[Illustration]
Mary is so good, she might easily
be a Chaplain, but of course she
can’t be anything that wants man;
She likes nursing her doll, but when we have battles
she moves the
lead soldiers about, and does what she
can.
She never grumbles about not being able to grow
up into a General,
though I should think it must be a great
bore.
I asked her what she would do if she were grown
up into a woman,
and belonged to some one who was wounded
in the war,—
She said she’d go out and nurse him:
so I said, “But supposing you
couldn’t get him better, and he
died; how would you behave?”
And she said if she couldn’t get a ship
to bring him home in, she
should stay out there and grow a garden,
and make wreaths
for his grave.
Nurse says we oughtn’t to have battles,
now Father’s gone to battle,
but that’s just the reason why!
And I don’t believe one bit what she said
about its making Mother cry.
Only she does like us to put away our toys on
[Illustration]
“TOUCH HIM IF YOU DARE.”
A TALE OF THE HEDGE.
HEDGE-PLANTS.
“Beware!
We advise
you to take care.
He lodges with us, so we know
him well,
And
can tell
You all
about him,
And we strongly advise you
not to flout him.”
DANDELION.
“At my time of life,”
said the Dandelion,
“I keep an eye on
The slightest sign of disturbance and riot,
For my one object is to keep quiet
The reason I take such very great care,”
The old Dandy went on, “is because of my
hair.
It was very thick once, and as yellow as gold;
But now I am old,
It is snowy-white,
And comes off with the slightest fright.
As to using a brush—
My good dog! I beseech you, don’t
rush,
Go quietly by me, if you please
You’re as bad as a breeze.
I hope you’ll attend to what we’ve
said;
And—whatever you do—don’t
touch my head,
In this equinoctial, blustering weather
You might knock it off with a feather.”
THISTLE.
Said the Thistle, “I can tickle,
But not as a Hedgehog can prickle;
Even my tough old friend the Moke
Would find our lodger no joke.”
DOG-ROSE.
“I have thorns,”
sighed the Rose,
“But they don’t
protect me like those;
He can pull his thorns right
over his nose.”
NETTLE.
“My sting,” said
the Nettle,
“Is nothing to his when
he’s put on his mettle.
No nose can endure it,
No dock-leaves will cure it.”
DOG.
“Bow-wow!” said
the Dog:
“All this fuss about
a Hedgehog?
Though I never saw one before—
There’s
my paw!
Good-morning, Sir! Do
you never stir?
You
look like an overgrown burr.
Good-day, I-say:
Will you have a game of play?
With your humped-up back and
your spines on end,
You remind me so of an intimate
friend,
The
Persian Puss
Who
lives with us.
How
well I know her tricks!
The
dear creature!
Just when you’re sure
you can reach her,
In the twinkling of a couple
of sticks
She saves herself by her heels,
And looks down at you out
of the apple-tree, with eyes like catherine
wheels.
The
odd part of it is,
I could swear that I could
not possibly miss
Her silky, cumbersome, traily
tail,
And that’s just where
I always fail.
But you seem to have nothing,
Sir, of the sort;
And I should be mortified
if you thought
That
I’m stupid at sport;
I assure you I don’t
often meet my match,
Where I chase I commonly catch.
I’ve
caught cats,
And
rats,
And (between ourselves) I
once caught a sheep,
And I think I could catch
a weasel asleep.”
HEDGE-PLANTS.
From the whole of the hedge there rose a shout,
“Oh! you’ll catch it, no doubt!
But remember we gave you warning fair,
Touch him if you dare!”
DOG.
“If I dare?” said the Dog—“Take that!”
As he gave the Hedgehog a pat.
But oh, how he pitied his own poor paw;
And shook it and licked it, it was so sore.
DANDELION.
“It’s much too funny by half,”
Said the Dandelion; “it makes me ill,
For I cannot keep still,
And my hair comes out if I laugh.”
The Hedgehog he spoke never a word,
And he never stirred;
His peeping eyes, his inquisitive nose,
And his tender toes,
Were all wrapped up in his prickly clothes.
A provoking enemy you may suppose!
And a dangerous one to flout—
Like a well-stocked pin-cushion inside out.
The Dog was valiant, the Dog was
vain,
He flew at the prickly ball again,
Snapping with all his might and main,
But, oh! the pain!
He sat down on his stumpy tail and howled,
Then he laid his jaws on his paws and growled.
DANDELION.
With laughter the Dandelion shook—
“It passes a printed book;
It’s as good as a play, I declare,
But it’s cost me half my back hair!”
The Dog he made another essay,
It really and truly was very plucky—
But “third times,” you know, are not always lucky—
And this time he ran away!
HEDGE-PLANTS.
Then the Hedge-plants every
one
Rustled together, “What
fun! what fun!
The
battle is done,
The
victory won.
Dear Hedge-pig, pray come
out of the Sun.”
The Hedge-pig put forth his
snout,
He sniffed hither and thither
and peeped about;
Then he tucked up his prickly
clothes,
And trotted away on his tender
toes
To where the hedge-bottom
is cool and deep,
Had a slug for supper, and
went to sleep.
His leafy bed-clothes cuddled
his chin,
And all the Hedge-plants tucked
him in.
But the hairs and the tears
that we shed
Never
can be recalled;
And when he too went
off, in hysterics, to bed,
DANDELION
was bald.
BROTHER BILL.
To have a good birthday for a grown-up
person is very difficult indeed;
We don’t give it up, for Mother says the
harder things are, the harder
you must try till you succeed.
Still, our birthdays are different; we
want so many things, and
choosing your own pudding, and even half-holidays
are treats;
But what can you do for people who always order
the dinner, and never
have lessons, and don’t even like
sweets?
[Illustration: Review of the
Household Troops
The Cavalry]
And if it hadn’t been for
Dolly’s Major (he’s her Godfather, and
she
calls him “my Major"), what we
should have done I really
don’t know!
He said, “What’s the matter?”
And Dolly said,
“Mother’s birthday’s the matter.”
And I said, “We can’t think what
to devise
To give her a birthday treat that won’t
give her neuralgia, and will
take her by surprise.
Look here, Major! How can you give people
treats who can order what
they wish for far better than you?
I wonder what they do for the Queen!—her
birthday must be the hardest
of all.” But he said, “Not
a bit of it! They have a review:
Cocked hats and all the rest of it; and a salute,
and a feu de joie,
and a March-Past.
That’s the way we keep the Queen’s
Birthday; and every year the same
as the last.”
So I settled at once to have a Mother’s
Birthday Review; and that she
should be Queen, and I should be the
General in command.
I thought she couldn’t come to any harm
by sitting in a fur cloak and
a birthday wreath at the window, and
bowing and waving
her hand.
We did not tell her what was coming, we only asked
for leave to have
all the seven donkeys for an hour and
a half;
(We always hire them from the same old man)—two
for the girls, and
five for me and my brothers—I
told him, “for me and
my Staff.”
We could have managed with five, if the girls
would only have been
Maids of Honour, and stayed indoors with
the Queen.
[Illustration: The Spectators.]
She likes to hire a donkey, and
then sham she’d rather not ride, for
fear of being too heavy; and to take
Spike out for a run,
and then carry him to save him the trouble
of walking.
But she’s very good; she made all our cocked
hats, and at the review
she and Dolly and Spike were the loyal
crowd.
Dick and Tom and Harry were the troops, and I
was the General, and
Mother looked quite like a Queen at the
window, and bowed.
The donkeys made very good chargers on the whole,
and especially mine;
Jem’s was the only one that gave trouble,
and neither fair means nor
foul would keep him in line.
Just when I’d dressed all their noses to
a nice level (you can do
nothing with their ears), then back went
Jem’s brute,
And Jem caught him a whack with the flat of his
sword (a thing you
never see done on the Staff), and it
rather spoilt the salute;
But the spirit of the troops was excellent, and
we’d a feu de joie
with penny pistols (Jem’s donkey
was the only one that shied),
and Dolly’s Major says that, all
things considered, he never
saw a better March-Past;
And Mother was delighted with her first Birthday
Review, and she is
none the worse for it, and says she only
hopes that it won’t
be the last.
[Footnote 5: Dame Elizabeth Treffry (temp. Henry VI.) defended Place House, Fowey, Cornwall, in the circumstances and with the vigorous measures described. On his return her husband wisely “Embattled all the walls of the house, and in a manner made it a Castelle, and unto this day it is the glorie of the town building in Faweye.”—Carew. The beauties of Place Castle remain to this day also.]
DOLLY.
They call me Dolly, but I’m
not a doll, and I’m not a baby, though
Baby is sometimes my name;
I behave beautifully at meals, and at church,
and I can put on my
own boots, and can say a good deal of
the Catechism, and ride
a donkey, and play at any boys’
game.
I’ve ridden a donkey that kicks (at least
I rode him as long as I was
on), and a donkey that rolls, and an
old donkey that
goes lame.
I mean to ride like a lady now, but that’s
JACK ASS.
The dew falls over the Heath, Brother
Donkeys, and the darkness falls,
but still through the gathering night
All around us spreads the Heath Bed-straw[6] in
glimmering sheets of
white.
Dragged and trampled, and plucked and wasted,
it patiently spreads
and survives;
Kicked and thwacked, and prodded and over-laden,
we patiently cling
to our lives.
Hee-haw! for the rest and silence of darkness
that follow the labours
of light.
Hee-haw! for the hours from night to morning,
that balance the hours
from morning to night.
Hee-haw! for the sweet night air that gives human
beings cold in
the head.
Hee-haw! for the civilization that sends human
beings to bed.
Rest, Brother Donkeys, rest, from the bit, the
burden, the blow,
The dust, the flies, the restless children, the
brutal roughs, the
greedy donkey-master, the greedier donkey-hirer,
the
holiday-maker who knows no better, and
the holiday-makers
who ought to know!
When the odorous furze-bush prickles the seeking
nose, and the short
damp grass refreshes the tongue,—lend,
Brother Donkeys, lend
a long and attentive ear!
Whilst I proudly bray
Of the one bright day
In our hard and chequered career.
I’ve dragged pots, and vegetables, and invalids,
and
fish, and I’ve galloped with four costermongers
to the races;
I’ve carried babies, and sea-coal, and sea-sand,
and sea-weed in
panniers, and been sold to the gypsies,
and been bought back
for the sea-side, and ridden (in a white
saddle-cloth with
scarlet braid) by the fashionable visitors.
(There was always
a certain distinction in my paces,
Though I say it who shouldn’t) I’ve
spent a summer on the Heath, and
next winter near Covent Garden, and moved
the following year
to the foot of a mountain, to take people
up to the top to
show them the view.
But how little we know what’s before us!
And how little I guessed I
should ever be chief charger at a Queen’s
Birthday Review!
Did I triumph alone? No, Brother Donkeys,
no! You also took your place
with the defenders of the nation;
Subordinate positions to my own, but meritoriously
filled, though a
little more style would have well become
so great an occasion.
That malevolent old Moke—may his next
thistle choke him!—disgraced us
all with his jibbing—the ill-tempered
old ass!
Young Neddy is shaggy and shy, but not amiss,
if he’d held his ears up,
and not kept his eyes on the grass.
Nothing is more je-june (I may say vulgar) than
to seem anxious to eat
when the crisis calls for public spirit,
enthusiasm, and an
elevated tone;
And I wish, Brother Donkeys, I wish that all had
felt as I felt, the
responsibility of a March-Past the Throne!
Respect and self-respect delicately blended; one
ear up, and the other
lowered to salute, as I passed the window
from which we
were seen
(Unless I grievously misunderstood the young General
[Footnote 6: Heath bed-straw
(Galium Saxatile). This white-flowered
bed-straw grows profusely on Hampstead Heath.]
THE PROMISE.
CHILD.
Five blue eggs hatching,
With bright eyes watching,
Little brown mother, you sit on your nest.
BIRD.
Oh! pass me blindly,
Oh! spare me kindly,
Pity my terror, and leave me to rest.
CHORUS OF CHILDREN.
Hush! hush! hush!
’Tis a poor mother thrush.
When the blue eggs hatch, the brown birds will
sing—
This is a promise made in the Spring.
CHILD.
Five speckled thrushes
In leafy bushes
Singing sweet songs to the hot Summer sky.
In and out twitting,
Here and there flitting,
Happy is life as the long days go by.
CHORUS.
Hush! hush! hush!
’Tis the song of the thrush:
Hatched are the blue eggs; the brown birds do
sing—
Keeping the promise made in the Spring.
Published in Aunt Judy’s
Magazine, July 1866, with music by
Alexander Ewing.
Hold my hand, little Sister, and
nurse my head, whilst I try to
remember the word,
What was it?—that the doctor says is
now fairly established both
in me and my bird.
C-O-N-con, with a con, S-T-A-N-stan,
with a stan—No! That’s
Constantinople, that is
The capital of the country where rhubarb-and-magnesia
comes from, and
I wish they would keep it in that country,
and not send
it to this.
C-O-N-con—how my head swims!
Now I’ve got it!
C-O-N-V-A-L-E-S-C-E-N-C-E.
Convalescence! And that’s what the
doctor says is now fairly
established both in my blackbird and
me.
He says it means that you are better, and that
you’ll be well
by and by.
And so the Sea-captain says, and he says we ought
to be friends,
because we’re both convalescents—at
least we’re all three
convalescents, my blackbird, and the
Captain and I.
He’s a sea-captain, not a land-captain,
but, all the same, he was
in the war,
And he fought,—for I asked him,—and
he’s been ill ever since, and
that’s why he’s not afloat,
but ashore;
And why somebody else has got his ship; and she
behaved so beautifully
in the battle, and he loves her quite
as much as his wife,
and rather better than the rest of his
[Illustration]
THE ADVENTURES OF AN ELF.
A PICTURE POEM FOR THE LITTLE ONES.
By Fedor Flinzer. Freely translated by J.H. Ewing.
I.
Dear children, listen whilst
I tell
What to a certain Elf befell,
Who left his house and sallied
forth
Adventure seeking, south and
north,
And west and east, by path
and field,
Resolved to conquer or to
yield.
A thimble on his back he carried,
With a rose-twig his foes
he parried.
[Illustration]
II.
It was a sunny, bright, spring
day,
When to the wood he took his
way;
He knew that in a certain
spot
A Bumble Bee his nest had
got.
The Bee was out, the chance
was good,
But just when grabbing all
he could,
He heard the Bee behind him
humming,
And only wished he’d
heard him coming!
[Illustration]
III.
In terror turned the tiny
man,
And now a famous fight began:
The Bee flew round, and buzzed
and stung,
The Elf his prickly rose-staff
swung.
Now fiercely here, now wildly
there,
He hit the Bee or fought the
air.
At last one weighty blow descended:
The Bee was dead—the
fight was ended.
[Illustration]
IV.
Exhausted quite, he took a
seat.
The honey tasted doubly sweet!
The thimble-full had been
upset,
But still there were a few
drops yet.
He licked his lips and blessed
himself,
That he was such a lucky Elf,
And now might hope to live
in clover;
But, ah! his troubles were
not over!
[Illustration]
V.
For at that instant, by his
side,
A beast of fearful form he
spied:
At first he thought it was
a bear,
And headlong fell in dire
despair.
He lost one slipper in the
moss,
And this was not his only
loss.
With paws and snout the beast
was nimble,
And very soon cleared out
the thimble.
[Illustration]
VI.
This rifling of his honey-pot
Awoke our Elfin’s wrath
full hot.
He made a rope of linden bast,
By either end he held it fast,
And creeping up behind the
beast,
Intent upon the honey feast,
Before it had the slightest
inkling,
The rope was round it in a
twinkling.
[Illustration]
VII.
The mouse shrieked “Murder!”
“Fire!” and “Thieves!”
And struggled through the
twigs and leaves.
It pulled the reins with all
its might,
Our hero only drew them tight.
Upon the mouse’s back
he leapt,
And like a man his seat he
kept.
His steed was terribly affrighted,
But he himself was much delighted.
[Illustration]
VIII.
“Gee up, my little horse!”
he cried,
“I mean to have a glorious
ride;
So bear me forth with lightning
speed,
A Knight resolved on doughty
deed.
The wide world we will gallop
round,
And clear the hedges at one
bound.”
The mouse set off, the hero
bantered,
And out into the world they
cantered.
[Illustration]
IX.
At last they rode up to an
inn:
“Good Mr. Host, pray
who’s within?”
“My daughter serves
the customers,
Before the fire the Tom-cat
purrs.”
For further news they did
not wait—
The mouse sprang through the
garden-gate—
They fled without a look behind
them.
The question is—Did
Thomas find them?
SONGS FOR MUSIC
I would not have you wake
for me,
Fair lady, though
I love you!
And though the night is warm,
and all
The stars are
out above you;
And though the dew’s
so light it could
Not hurt your
little feet,
And nightingales in yonder
wood
Are singing passing
sweet.
Yet may my plaintive strain
unite
And mingle with
your dreaming,
And through the visions of
the night
Just interweave
my seeming.
Yet no! sleep on with fancy
free
In that untroubled
breast;
No song of mine, no thought
of me,
Deserves to break
your rest!
MAIDEN WITH THE GIPSY LOOK.
Maiden with the gipsy look,
Dusky locks and russet hue,
Open wide thy Sybil’s
book,
Tell my fate and tell it true;
Shall I live? or shall I die?
Timely wed, or single be?
Maiden with the gipsy eye,
Read my riddle unto me!
Maiden with the gipsy face,
If thou canst not tell me
all,
Tell me thus much, of thy
grace,
Should I climb, or fear to
fall?
Should I dare, or dread to
dare?
Should I speak, or silent
be?
Maiden with the gipsy hair,
Read my riddle unto me!
Maiden with the gipsy hair,
Deep into thy mirror look,
See my love and fortune there,
Clearer than in Sybil’s
book:
Let me cross thy slender palm,
Let me learn my fate from
thee;
Maiden with the gipsy charm,
Read my riddle unto me.
The whispering water rocks
the reeds,
And, murmuring softly, laps
the weeds;
And nurses there the falsest
bloom
That ever wrought a lover’s
doom.
Forget me not!
Forget me not!
Ah!
would I could forget!
But, crying still,
“Forget me not,”
Her
image haunts me yet.
We wander’d by the river’s
brim,
The day grew dusk, the pathway
dim;
Her eyes like stars dispell’d
the gloom,
Her gleaming fingers pluck’d
the bloom.
Forget me not!
Forget me not!
Ah!
would I could forget!
But, crying still,
“Forget me not,”
Her
image haunts me yet.
The pale moon lit her paler
face,
And coldly watch’d our
last embrace,
And chill’d her tresses’
sunny hue,
And stole that flower’s
turquoise blue.
Forget me not!
Forget me not!
Ah!
would I could forget!
But, crying still,
“Forget me not,”
Her
image haunts me yet.
The fateful flower droop’d
to death,
The fair, false maid forswore
her faith;
But I obey a broken vow,
And keep those wither’d
blossoms now!
Forget me not!
Forget me not!
Ah!
would I could forget!
But, crying still,
“Forget me not,”
Her
image haunts me yet.
Sweet lips that pray’d—“Forget
me not!”
Sweet eyes that will not be
forgot!
Recall your prayer, forego
your power,
Which binds me by the fatal
flower.
Forget me not!
Forget me not!
Ah!
would I could forget!
But, crying still,
“Forget me not,”
Her
image haunts me yet.
MADRIGAL.
Life is full of trouble,
Love is full of
care,
Joy is like a bubble
Shining in the
air,
For
you cannot
Grasp it anywhere.
Love is not worth getting,
It doth fade so
fast.
Life is not worth fretting
Which so soon
is past;
And
you cannot
Bid them longer
last.
Yet for certain fellows
Life seems true
and strong;
And with some, they tell us,
Love will linger
long;
Thus
they cannot
Understand my
song.
THE ELLEREE.[7]
A SONG OF SECOND SIGHT.
Elleree! O Elleree!
Seeing what none else may
see,
Dost thou see the man in grey?
Dost thou hear the night hounds
bay?
Elleree!
O Elleree!
Seventh son of seventh son,
All thy thread of life is
spun,
Thy little race is nearly
run,
And death awaits
for thee!
Elleree! O Elleree!
Coronach shall wail for thee;
Get thee shrived and get thee
blest,
Get thee ready for thy rest,
Elleree!
O Elleree!
That thou owest quickly give,
What thou ownest thou must
leave,
And those thou lovest best
shall grieve,
But all in vain
for thee!
“Bodach Glas!"[8] the
chieftain said,
“All my debts but one
are paid,
All I love have long been
dead,
All my hopes on Heaven are
stay’d,
Death to me can
bring no dole;”
Thus the Elleree replied;—
But with ebbing of the tide
As sinks the setting sun he
died;—
May Christ receive
his soul!
[Footnote 7: “Elleree”
is the name of one who has the gift of second
sight.]
[Footnote 8: “Bodach
Glas,” the Man in Grey, appears to a Highland
family with the gift of second
sight, presaging death.]
The night is dark, and yet
it is not quite:
Those stars are
hid that other orbs may shine;
Twin stars, whose rays illuminate
the night,
And cheer her
gloom, but only deepen mine;
For
these fair stars are not what they do seem,
But
vanish’d eyes remember’d in a dream.
The night is dark, and yet
it brings no rest;
Those eager eyes
gaze on and banish sleep;
Though flaming Mars has lower’d
his crimson crest,
And weary Venus
pales into the deep,
These
two with tender shining mock my woe
From
out the distant heaven of long ago.
The night is dark, and yet
how bright they gleam!
Oh! empty vision
of a vanish’d light!
Sweet eyes! must you for ever
be a dream
Deep in my heart,
and distant from my sight?
For
could you shine as once you shone before,
The
stars might hide their rays for evermore!
FADED FLOWERS.
My love she sent a flower
to me
Of tender hue and fragrance
rare,
And with it came across the
sea
A letter kind as she was fair;
But when her letter met mine
eyes,
The flower, the little flower,
was dead:
And ere I touched the tender
prize
The hues were dim, the fragrance
fled.
I sent my love a letter too,
In happy hope no more to roam;
I bade her bless the vessel
true
Whose gallant sails should
waft me home.
But ere my letter reach’d
her hand,
My love, my little love, was
dead,
And when the vessel touch’d
the land,
Fair hope for evermore had
fled.
What time I left my native
land,
And bade farewell
to my true love,
She laid a flower in my hand
As azure as the
sky above.
“Speed
thee well! Speed well!”
She softly whispered,
“Speed well!
This
flower blue
Be
token true
Of my true heart’s
true love for you!”
Its tender hue is bright and
pure,
As heav’n
through summer clouds doth show,
A pledge though clouds thy
way obscure,
It shall not be
for ever so.
“Speed
thee well! Speed well!”
She softly whisper’d,
“Speed well!
This
flower blue
Be
token true
Of my true heart’s
true love for you!”
And as I toil through help
and harm,
And whilst on
alien shores I dwell,
I wear this flower as a charm,
My heart repeats
that tender spell:
“Speed
thee well! Speed well!”
It softly whispers,
“Speed well!
This
flower blue
Be
token true
Of my true heart’s true
love for you!”
HOW MANY YEARS AGO?
How many years ago, love,
Since you came
courting me?
Through oak-tree wood and
o’er the lea,
With rosy cheeks
and waistcoat gay,
And mostly not
a word to say,—
How
many years ago, love,
How
many years ago?
How many years ago, love,
Since you to Father
spoke?
Between your lips a sprig
of oak:
You were not one
with much to say,
But Mother spoke
for you that day,—
How
many years ago, love,
How
many years ago?
So many years ago, love,
That soon our
time must come
To leave our girl without
a home;—
She’s like
her mother, love, you’ve said:
—At her age
I had long been wed,—
How
many years ago, love,
How
many years ago?
For love of long-ago, love,
If John has aught
to say,
When he comes up to us to-day,
(A likely lad,
though short of tongue,)
Remember, husband,
we were young,—
How
many years ago, love,
How
many years ago?
“WITH A DIFFERENCE.”
I’m weary waiting here,
The chill east
wind is sighing,
The autumn tints are sere,
The summer flowers
are dying.
The river’s sullen way
Winds on through
vacant meadows,
The dying light of day
Strives vainly
with the shadows.
A footstep stirs the leaves!
The faded fields
seem brighter,
The sunset gilds the sheaves,
The low’ring
clouds look lighter.
The river sparkles by,
Not all the flowers
are falling,
There’s azure in the
sky,
And thou, my love,
art calling.
Over wastes of blasted heather,
Where the pine-trees stand
together,
Evermore my footsteps wander,
Evermore the shadows yonder
Deepen
into gloom.
Where there lies a silent
lake,
No song-bird there its thirst
may slake,
No sunshine now to whiteness
wake
The
water-lily’s bloom.
Some sweet spring-time long
departed,
I and she, the simple-hearted,
Bride and bridegroom, maid
and lover,
Did that gloomy lake discover,
Did
those lilies see.
There we wandered side by
side.
There it was they said she
died.
But ah! in this I know they
lied!
She
will return to me!
Never, never since that hour
Has the lake brought forth
a flower.
Ever harshly do the sedges
Some sad secret from its edges
Whisper
to the shore.
Some sad secret I forget.
The lily though will blossom
yet:
And when it blooms I shall
have met
My
love for evermore.
FROM FLEETING PLEASURES.
A REQUIEM FOR ONE ALIVE.
From fleeting pleasures and
abiding cares,
From sin’s seductions
and from Satan’s snares,
From woes and wrath to penitence
and prayers,
Veni
in pace!
Sweet absolution thy sad spirit
heal;
To godly cares that end in
endless weal,
To joys man cannot think or
speak or feel,
Vade
in pace!
From this world’s ways
and being led by them,
From floods of evil thy youth
could not stem,
From tents of Kedar to Jerusalem,
Veni
in pace!
Blest be thy worldly loss
to thy soul’s gain,
Blest be the blow that freed
thee from thy chain,
Blest be the tears that wash
thy spirit’s stain,
Vade
in pace!
Oh, dead, and yet alive!
Oh, lost and found!
Salvation’s walls now
compass thee around,
Thy weary feet are set on
holy ground.
Veni
in pace!
Death gently garner thee with
all the blest,
In heavenly habitations be
thou guest;
To light perpetual and eternal
rest,
Vade
in pace!
THE RUNAWAY’S RETURN.
It
was on such a night as this,
Some
long unreal years ago,
When
all within were wrapp’d in sleep,
And
all without was wrapp’d in snow,
The
full moon rising in the east,
The
old church standing like a ghost,
That,
shivering in the wintry mist,
And
breathless with the silent frost,
A little lad, I ran to seek
my fortune on the main;
I marvel now with how much
hope and with how little pain!
It
is of such a night as this,
In
all the lands where I have been,
That
memory too faithfully
Has
painted the familiar scene.
By
all the shores, on every sea,
In
luck or loss, by night or day,
My
highest hope has been to see
That
home from which I ran away.
For this I toil’d, to
this I look’d through many a weary year,
I marvel now with how much
hope, and with how little fear.
On
such a night at last I came,
But
they were dead I loved of yore.
Ah,
Mother, then my heart felt all
The
pain it should have felt before!
I
came away, though loth to come,
I
clung, and yet why should I cling?
When
all have gone who made it home,
It
is the shadow, not the thing.
A homeless man, once more
I seek my fortune on the main:
I marvel with how little hope,
and with what bitter pain.
FANCY FREE.
A GIRL’S SONG.
With bark and bound and frolic
round
My dog and I together run;
While by our side a brook doth glide,
And laugh and sparkle in the sun.
We ask no more of fortune’s store
Than thus at our sweet wills to roam:
And drink heart’s ease from every breeze
That blows about the hills of home.
As, fancy free,
With game and glee,
We happy three
Dance down the glen.
And yet they say that some fine
day
This vagrant stream may serve a mill;
My doggy guard a master’s yard;
My free heart choose another’s will.
How this may fare we little care,
My dog and I, as still we run!
Whilst by our side the brook doth glide,
And laugh and sparkle in the sun.
For, fancy free,
With game and glee,
We happy three
Dance down the glen.
You ask me what—since
we must part—
You shall bring home to me;
Bring back a pure and faithful heart,
As true as mine to thee.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself—and that dear self the same—
My love, bring back to me!
You talk of gems from foreign
lands,
Of treasure, spoil, and prize.
Ah, love! I shall not
search your hands,
But look into your eyes.
I ask not wealth
nor fame,
I only ask for
thee,
Thyself—and
that dear self the same—
My love, bring back to me!
You speak of glory and renown,
With me to share your pride,
Unbroken faith is all the
crown
I ask for as your bride.
I ask not wealth
nor fame,
I only ask for
thee,
Thyself—and
that dear self the same—
My love, bring back to me!
You bid me with hope’s
eager gaze
Behold fair fortune come.
I only dream I see your face
Beside the hearth at home.
I ask not wealth
nor fame,
I do but ask for
thee!
Thyself—and
that dear self the same—
May God restore to me!
ANEMONES.
If I should wish hereafter that
your heart
Should beat with one fair memory of me,
May Time’s hard hand our footsteps guide
apart,
But lead yours back one spring-time to the Lea.
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more fair than these,
Love’s vows more frail.
For then the grass we loved grows
green again,
And April showers make April woods more fair;
But no sun dries the sad salt tears of pain,
Or brings back summer lights on faded hair,
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more frail than these,
Love’s vows more frail.
The Spring’s bright tints
no more are seen,
And Summer’s ample robe of green
Is russet-gold and brown;
When flowers fall to every breeze
And, shed reluctant from the trees,
The leaves drop down.
A sadness steals about the
heart,
—And is it thus from
youth we part,
And
life’s redundant prime?
Must friends like flowers
fade away,
And life like Nature know
decay,
And
bow to time?
And yet such sadness meets
rebuke,
From every copse in every
nook
Where
Autumn’s colours glow;
How bright the sky! How
full the sheaves!
What mellow glories gild the
leaves
Before
they go.
Then let us sing the jocund
praise,
In this bright air, of these
bright days,
When
years our friendships crown;
The love that’s loveliest
when ’tis old—
When tender tints have turned
to gold
And
leaves drop down.
HYMNS.
CONFIRMATION.
Long, long ago, with vows too much
forgotten,
The Cross of Christ was seal’d on every
brow,
Ah! slow of heart, that shun the Christian conflict;
Rise up at last! The accepted time is now.
Soldiers of Jesus! Blest who endure;
Stand in the battle; the victory is sure.
Hark! hark! the Saviour’s
voice to each is calling—
“I bore the Cross of Death in pain for
thee;
On thee the Cross of daily life is falling:
Children! take up the Cross and follow Me.”
Soldiers of Jesus! &c.
Strive as God’s saints have
striven in all ages;
Press those slow steps where firmer feet have
trod:
For us their lives adorn the sacred pages,
For them a crown of glory is with God.
Soldiers of Jesus! &c.
Peace! peace! sweet voices bring
an ancient story,
(Such songs angelic melodies employ,)
“Hard is the strife, but unconceived the
glory:
Short is the pain, eternal is the joy.”
Soldiers of Jesus! &c.
On! Christian souls, all base
temptations spurning,
Drown coward thoughts in Faith’s triumphant
hymn;
Since Jesus suffer’d, our salvation earning,
Shall we not toil that we may rest with Him?
Soldiers of Jesus! &c. Amen.
Come down! come down! O Holy
Ghost!
As once of old Thou didst come down
In fiery tongues at Pentecost,
The Apostolic heads to crown.
Come down! though now no flame
divine,
Nor heaven-sent
Dove, our sight amaze;
Our Church still shows the
outward sign,
Thou truly givest
inward grace.
Come down! come down! on infancy,
The babes whom
Jesus deign’d to love;
God give us grace by faith
to see,
Above the Font,
the mystic Dove.
Come down! come down! on kneeling
bands
Of those who fain
would strength receive;
And in the laying on of hands
Bless us beyond
what we believe.
Come down! not only on the
saint,
Oh! struggle with
the hard of heart,
With wilful sin and inborn
taint,
Till lust, and
wrath, and pride depart.
Come down! come down! sweet
Comforter!
It was the promise
of the Lord.
Come down! although we grieve
Thee sore,
Not for our merits—but
His Word.
Come down! come down! not
what we would,
But what we need,
O bring with Thee.
Turn life’s sore riddle
to our good;
A little while
and we shall see. Amen.
CHRISTMAS WISHES.
A CAROL.
Oh, happy Christmas, full of
blessings, come!
Now bid our discords cease;
Here give the weary ease;
Let the long-parted meet again in peace;
Bring back the far-away;
Grant us a holiday;
And by the hopes of Christmas-tide we pray—
Let love restore the fallen to his Home;
Whilst up and down the snowy streets the Christmas
minstrels sing;
And through the frost from countless towers the
bells of
Christmas ring.
Ah, Christ! and yet a happier
day shall come!
Then bid our discords cease;
There give the weary ease;
Let the long-parted meet again in peace;
Bring back the far-away;
Grant us a holiday;
And by the hopes of Christmas-tide we pray—
Let love restore the fallen to his Home;
Whilst up and down the golden streets the blessed
angels sing,
And evermore the heavenly chimes in heavenly cadence
ring.
TEACH ME.
Translated from the Danish of Oehlenschlaeger.
Teach me, O wood, to fade
away,
As autumn’s yellow leaves
decay
A
better spring impends,—
Then green and glorious shall
my tree
Take deep root in eternity,—
Whose
summer never ends!
Teach me, O bird of passage,
this,
To seek, in faith a better
bliss
On
other unknown shores!
When all is winter here and
ice,
There ever-smiling Paradise
Unfolds
its happy doors.
Teach me, thou summer butterfly,
To break the bonds which on me lie.
With fetters all too firm.
Ah, soon on golden purple wing
The liberated soul shall spring,
Which now creeps as a worm!
Teach me, O Lord, to yonder skies
To lift in hope these weary eyes
With earthly sorrows worn.
Good Friday was a bitter day,
But bright the sun’s eternal ray
Which broke on Easter morn.
THE END.
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.
The present Series of Mrs. Ewing’s Works is the only authorized, complete, and uniform Edition published.
It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing.
The following is a list of the books included in the Series—
1. MELCHIOR’S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES.
2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY’S REMEMBRANCES.
3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES.
4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING.
5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES.
6. SIX TO SIXTEEN.
7. LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES.
8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL.
9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS.
10. THE PEACE EGG—A
CHRISTMAS MUMMING
PLAY—HINTS FOR
PRIVATE
THEATRICALS, &c.
11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES.
12. BROTHERS OF PITY,
AND OTHER TALES
OF BEASTS AND MEN.
13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I.
14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II.
15. JACKANAPES—DADDY
DARWIN’S DOVECOTE—THE
STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.
16. MARY’S MEADOW,
AND OTHER TALES
OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS.
17. MISCELLANEA, including
The Mystery of the
Bloody Hand—Wonder
Stories—Tales of the
Khoja, and other translations.
18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING
AND HER
BOOKS, with a selection from
Mrs. Ewing’s
Letters.