Various

“ I was once a barefoot boy!
Oh, for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned in schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild flower’s time and place,
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole’s nest is hung,
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine,
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay. ”

“ Checking the field lark’s rippling notes—
Lightly I sweep from steep to steep;
O’er my head through branches high
Come glimpses of deep blue sky;
The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks:
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life’s hoard of regret—
All the terror and pain of a chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind! I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate—the skies expand;
Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls ”

“ Bright yellow crocus, come, open your eyes:
Sweet little violets hid from the cold,
Put on your mantles of purple and gold.
Daffodils, daffodils, say, do you hear?
Summer is coming and springtime is here.
—Anon.
SUPPOSE.
Suppose the little cowslip
Should hang its golden cup,
And say, “I’m such a tiny flower,
I’d better not grow up;”
How many a weary traveler
Would miss its fragrant smell,
And many a little child would grieve
To lose it from the dell.
Suppose the little breezes,
Upon a summer’s day,
Should think themselves too small
To cool the traveler on his way ”

“ What does the daisy see
In the breezy meadows tossing?
It sees the wide blue fields o’er head
And the little cloud flocks crossing.
What does the daisy see
Round the sunny meadows glancing?
It sees the butterflies’ chase
And the filmy gnats at their dancing.
What does the daisy see
Down in the grassy thickets?
The grasshoppers green and brown,
And the shining, coal-black crickets.
It sees the bobolink’s nest,
That no one else can discover,
And the brooding mother-bird
With the floating grass above her. ”

“ Out about the golden fields where tall the wheat is growing,
Through the barn and up the road, they cackle and they clatter;
Cry the children, “Hear the hens! Why, what can be the matter?”
What scraping and what scratching, what bristling and what hustling,
The cock stands on the fence, the wind his ruddy plumage rustling.
Like a soldier grand he stands, and like a trumpet glorious,
Sounds his shout both far and near, imperious and victorious.
But to the Partlets down below who cannot find the key, they hear,
“Lock the dairy door;” that’s all his challenge says to them, my dear. ”

“ In the joyous Easter morning, for hopes are blossoming,
And as earth her shroud of snow from off her breast doth fling,
So may we cast our fetters off in God’s eternal Spring;
So may we find release at last from sorrow and from pain,
Soon may we find our childhood’s calm, delicious dawn again.
Sweet are your eyes, O little ones, that look with smiling grace,
Without a shade of doubt or fear into the future’s face.
Sing, sing in happy chorus, with happy voices tell
That death is life, and God is good, and all things shall be well. ”

“ SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP!
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy father watches his sheep;
Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree,
And down comes a little dream on thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!
The large stars are the sheep;
The little stars are the lambs, I guess;
And the gentle moon is the shepherdess.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Our Saviour loves His sheep;
He is the Lamb of God on high,
Who for our sakes came down to die.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
—E. Prentiss (from the German) . ”

“ They never crush the dainty frills about their cheeks of gold;
But pure and white, in gay sunlight
They’re nid-nodding—pretty sight.
The daisies love the golden sun, upon the clear blue sky,
He gazes kindly down on them and winks his jolly eye;
While soft and low, all in a row,
Both nurses and babies are nodding JUST SO.
—Anon.
DANDELIONS.
There surely is a gold mine somewhere underneath the grass,
For dandelions are popping out in every place you pass.
But if you want to gather some you’d better not delay,
For the gold will turn to silver soon and all will blow away. ”

“ And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang with the anthems of the free!
The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white wave’s foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared—this was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there away from their childhood’s land?
There was woman’s fearless eye, lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth. ”

“ A bumble bee, yellow as gold
Sat perched on a red-clover top,
When a grasshopper, wiry and old,
Came along with a skip and a hop.
“Good morrow” cried he, “Mr. Bumble Bee,
You seem to have come to stop.”
“We people that work,” said the bee with a jerk,
“Find a benefit sometimes in stopping,
Only insects like you, who have nothing to do
Can keep perpetually hopping.” ”

“ Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. ”

“ No morning sun lasts a whole day.
Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.
Get what you can, and what you get, hold, ’Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold.
Experience keeps a dear school; but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
The key, often used, is always bright.
But dost thou love life? then do not waste time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.
Lost time is never found again.
There are no gains without pains.
At the workingman’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. ”

“ They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel;
Since God is marching on.”
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat ”

“ The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning—and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. ”

“ Soon o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallow’d up thy form; yet, on my heart,
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
—Bryant.
THE HERITAGE.
The rich man’s son inherits lands,
And piles of brick and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old ”

“ Though swallows leave me out of sight, we’d better keep our places:
Perhaps the world would all go wrong with one too many daisies.
Look bravely up into the sky and be content with knowing
That God wished for a buttercup, just here where you are growing. ”

“ And clothes the mountain with its azure hue.
—Campbell.
Give fools their gold and knaves their power,
Let fortune’s bubble rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree is more than all. ”

“ Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!
God bless the flag and its loyal defenders
While its broad folds o’er the battle-fields wave,
Till the dim star-wreaths rekindle its splendors
Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!
—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
LIFE.34
Forenoon and afternoon and night—Forenoon and afternoon and night,
Forenoon, and—what!
The empty song repeats itself. No more?
Yea, that is life: Make this forenoon sublime,
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,
And Time is conquered and thy crown is won. ”

“ And better than gold.
Sing, pretty birds, and build your nests,
The fields are green, the skies are clear;
Sing, pretty birds, and build your nests,
The world is glad to have you here.
A friend in need is a friend indeed. ”

“ Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee;
Thou lovest, but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.
Waking, or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? ”

“ Stand by your conscience, your honor, your faith—
Stand like a hero, and battle till death!
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city. ”

“ The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
—Longfellow.
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on. ”

“ Save one who tried to hide herself, and drooped that pleasant weather.
A robin who had flown too high, and felt a little lazy,
Was resting near this buttercup who wished she was a daisy.
For daisies grow so slim and tall! ”

“ Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going?” “What do you wish?”
The old Moon asked the three.
“We come to fish for the herring fish
That live in the beautiful sea,
Nets of silver and gold have we,”
Said Wynken, Blynken and Nod. ”

“ Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees its close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life,
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus, on its sounding anvil, shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
—Longfellow.
LOVE OF COUNTRY
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand! ”

“ They wave from the tall, rocking tree-tops
Where the oriole’s hammock-nest swings;
And at night-time are folded in slumber
By a song that a fond mother sings.
Those who toil bravely are strongest;
The humble and poor become great ”

“ The basis of all culture lies in a pure and elevated moral nature, and so noted an authority as President Eliot, of Harvard University, has said that the short memory gems which he learned as a boy in school, have done him more good in the hour of temptation than all the sermons he ever heard preached. A fine thought or beautiful image, once stored in the mind, even if at first it is received indifferently and with little understanding, is bound to recur again and again, and its companionship will have a sure, if unconscious, influence. ”

“ Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon;
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
—Alfred Tennyson.
THE FERRY FOR SHADOWTOWN.
Sway to and fro in the twilight gray ”

“ It is rather for us, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ”

“ The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world.
—Robert Browning.
LITTLE BROWN HANDS.
They drive home the cows from the pasture,
Up through the long shady lane,
Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields,
That are yellow with ripening grain.
They find, in the thick, waving grasses,
Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows.
They gather the earliest snowdrops,
And the first crimson buds of the rose.
They toss the new hay in the meadow;
They gather the elder-bloom white ”

“ He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: The Lord is thy shade on thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. —Bible.
RAIN IN SUMMER.
How beautiful is the rain! ”