Slike strani
PDF
ePub

With pure heart newly stamped from nature's mint, (Where did he learn that squint?)

Thou young domestic dove!

(He'll have that ring off with another shove,)

Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! (Are these torn clothes his best?)

Little epitome of man!

(He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life, (He's got a knife!)

Thou enviable being!

No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on,

My elfin John!

Toss the light ball, bestride the stick,-
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!)
With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down,
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk,
With many a lamb-like frisk!

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose !

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove; (I'll tell you what, my love,

(I cannot write unless he's sent above.)

-Thomas Hood.

[blocks in formation]

?"

44

But we'll be good, won't we, moder?
And from off my lap he slid,
Digging deep among the goodies
In his crimson stockings hid,
While I turned me to my table,

Where a tempting goblet stood,
With a dainty drink brimmed over,
Sent me by a neighbor good.
But the kitten, there before me,
With his white paw, nothing loth.
Sat, by way of entertainment

Slapping off the shining froth;
And in not the gentlest humor
At the loss of such a treat,
I confess, I rather rudely,

Thrust him out into the street.

Then how Benny's blue eyes kindled !
Gathering up the precious store

He had busily been pouring
In his tiny pinafore,

With a generous look that shamed me,

Benny.

Sprang he from the carpet bright, Showing by his mien indignant,

All a baby's sense of right.

"Come back, Harney," called he loudly, As he held his apron white,

"You shall have my candy wabbit "; But the door was fastened tight. So he stood, abashed and silent,

In the center of the floor,
With defeated look alternate
Bent on me, and on the doo

Then, as by some sudden impulse,
Quickly ran he to the fire,
And while eagerly his bright eyes

Watched the flames go high and higher,
In a brave, clear key, he shouted,
Like some lordly little elf,

"Santa Caus, come down de chinney, Make my moder 'have herself."

"I will be a good girl, Benny,"

Said I, feeling the reproof;
And straightway recalled poor Harney,
Mewing on the gallery roof.
Soon the anger was forgotten,

Laughter chased away the frown,
And they gamboled 'neath the live-oaks
Till the dusky night came down.
In my dim, fire-lighted chamber
Harney purred beneath my chair,

And my play-worn boy beside me

Knelt to say his evening prayer.
"God bess fader, God bess moder,
God bess sister, "-then a pause,
And the sweet young lips devoutly
Murmured, "God bess Santa Kaus."

He is sleeping; brown and silken
Lie the lashes, long and meek,

Like caressing, clinging shadows On his plump and peachy cheek; And I bend above him, weeping

Thankful tears, O Undefiled! For a woman's crown of glory, For the blessing of a child.

-Annie C. Ketchum.

I

A Thought Over a Cradle.

SADDEN when thou smilest to my smile, Child of my love! I tremble to believe That o'er the mirror of that eye of blue The shadow of my heart will always pass;A heart that, from its struggle with the world, Comes nightly to thy guarded cradle home, And, careless of the staining dust it brings, Asks for its idol! Strange, that flowers of earth Are visited by every air that stirs,

And drink in sweetness only, while the child That shuts within its breast a bloom for heaven May take a blemish from the breath of love, And bear the blight forever.

I have wept

With gladness at the gift of this fair child!
My life is bound up in her. But, oh God!
Thou know'st how heavily my heart at times
Bears its sweet burden; and if thou hast given
To nurture such as mine this spotless flower,
To bring it unpolluted unto Thee,

Take Thou its love, I pray Thee! Give it light-
Though, following the sun, it turn from me!-
But by the chord thus wrung, and by the light
Shining about her, draw me to my childl
And link us close, oh God, when near to heaven!
-N. P. Willis.

Ο

The Bald-Headed Tyrant.

H! the quietest home on earth had I,
No thought of trouble, no hint of care;
Like a dream of pleasure the days fled by,

And Peace had folded her pinions there.
But one day there joined in our household band
A bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.

Oh, the despot came in the dead of night,
And no one ventured to ask him why;
Like slaves we trembled before his might,

Our hearts stood still when we heard him cry;
For never a soul could his power withstand,
That bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.
He ordered us here, and he sent us there-
Though never a word could his small lips speak-
With his toothless gums and his vacant stare,
And his helpless limbs so frail and weak,
Till I cried, in a voice of stern command,
"Go up, thou bald-head from No man's-land."

But his abject slaves they turned on me;
Like the bears in Scripture, they'd rend me there.
The while they worshiped with bended knee
The ruthless wretch with the missing hair,
For he rules them all with relentless hand,
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's land.
Then I searched for help in every clime,

For Peace had fled from my dwelling now,
Till I finally thought of old Father Time,

And low before him I made my bow. "Wilt thou deliver me out of his hand, This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land ?" Old Time he looked with a puzzled stare,

And a smile came over his features grim. I'll take the tyrant under my care:

Watch what my hour-glass does to him. The veriest humbug that ever was planned, Is this same bald-head from No-man's-land.

[blocks in formation]

Harry Ashland, One of My Lovers.

HAVE a lover, a little lover, he rolls on the grass and plays in the clover;

He builds block-houses and digs clay wells, and makes sand-pies in his hat.

On Sundays he swings in the little porch, or has a clean collar and goes to church,

And asks me to marry him, when he grows up, and live in a house "like that."

He wears a great apron like a sack,-it's hard they don't put him in trousers and jackets;

But his soul is far above buttons, and his hope for the future o'ershoots them,

For Harry, like larger lovers, will court, without any visible means of support,

And ask you to give him your heart and hand, when he doesn't know where to put them.

All day he's tumbling, and leaping and jumping,-run-
ning and calling, hammering and thumping,
Playing "bo-peep" with the blue eyed babe, or chasing
the cows in the lane;

But at twilight around my chair he lingers, clasping my
hand in his dimpled fingers,
[spire again.
And I wonder if love so pure and fresh I shall ever in-
The men that kneel and declaim their passion,-the

men that "annex" you in stately fashion,—
There is not so much of truth and warmth in all the
hearts of a score,-

And I look in the honest eyes of this baby, and wonder what would have happened, maybe,

if Heaven had not made me be twenty now, while Harry is only four.

I have a little rival named Ada, she clings to a promise that Harry made her,

"To build her a house all full of doors, and live with her there some day;"

But Ada is growing lank and thin,-they say she will have a peaked chin,

And I think had nearly outgrown her first love" before I came in the way.

She wears short skirts, and a pink-trimmed Shaker, the nicest aprons her mother can make her,

And a Sunday hat with feathers; but it doesn't matter how she is dressed,

For Harry-sweetest of earthly lispers-has said in my ear, in loudest whispers,

With his dear short arms around my neck, that he "likes the grown-up bonnets best."

He says he shall learn to be a lawyer, but his private preference is a sawyer,

And counselors, not less than carpenters, live by "sawdust" and by bores.

It's easier to saw a plank in two than to bore a judicial blockhead through.

Harry will cut his way through the ranks, and stand at the head of you men!

I say to him sometimes, "My dearest Harry, we haven't money enough to marry;"

He has sixty cents in his little tin "bank," and a keepsake in his drawer;

But he always promises, "I'll get plenty-I'll find where they make it, when I'm twenty;

I'll go down town where the other men do, and bring it out of the store."

And then he describes such wonderful dresses, and gives me such gallant hugs and caresses,

With items of courtship from Mother Goose, silk cushions and rings of gold,

And I think what a fond, true breast to dream on, what a dear, brave heart for a woman to lean on, What a king and kingdom are saving up for some baby a twelvemonth old!

Twenty years hence, when I am forty, and Harry a young man, gay and naughty.

Flirting and dancing, and shooting guns, driving fast horses and cracking whips,

The handsomest fellow!-Heaven bless him!--setting the girls all wild to possess him,—

With his dark mustache and hazel eyes, and cigars in those pretty lips!

And if panels of jurors fail to yield, he can always panel O, do you think he will quite forget me,—do you believe

doors.

It's a question of enterprise versus wood, and if his hammer and will be good,

If his energetic little brown hand be as steady and busy then,

Though chisel or pen be the weapon he's needing, whether his business is planing or pleading,

he will ever regret me?

[an idle myth, Will he wish the twenty years back again, or deem this While I shall sometimes push up my glasses, and sigh

as my baby lover passes

And wonder if Heaven sets this world right, as I look at Mr. Smith!

-Anonymous.

I

WAS sitting in my study,

Writing letters, when I heard,

"Please, dear mamma, Mary told me

Mamma mustn't be 'isturbed.

"But I'se tired of the kitty,

Want some ozzer fing to do.

Witing letters, is 'ou, mamma?
Tan't I wite a letter too?"
darling, mamma's busy;

"Not now,
Run and play with kitty, now."

Papa's Letter.

"No, no, mamma; me wite letter,
Tan if 'ou will show me how."

I would paint my darling's portrait
As his sweet eyes searched my face
Hair of gold and eyes of azure,
Form of childish, witching grace.
But the eager face was clouded,
As I slowly shook my head,
Till I said, "I'll make a letter
Of you, darling boy, instead."

So I parted back the tresses
From his forehead high and white,
And a stamp in sport I pasted

'Mid its waves of golden light.

Then I said, "Now, little letter,

Go away and bear good news." And I smiled as down the staircase Clattered loud the little shoes.

Leaving me, the darling hurried
Down to Mary in his glee,
"Mamma's witing lots of letters:
I'se a letter, Mary-see!"

No one heard the little prattler,

As once more he climbed the stair, Reached his little cap and tippet, Standing on the entry stair.

No one heard the front door open,
No one saw the golden hair,
As it floated o'er his shoulders
In the crisp October air.

Down the street the baby hastened
Till he reached the office door.
"I'se a letter, Mr. Postman;

Is there room for any more?
"'Cause dis letter's doin' to papa,
Papa lives with God, 'ou know,
Mamma sent me for a letter,

Does 'ou fink 'at I tan go?"

But the clerk in wonder answered, "Not to-day, my little man." "Den I'll find anozzer office,

'Cause I must do if I tan."

Fain the clerk would have detained him,
But the pleading face was gone,
And the little feet were hastening-
By the busy crowd swept on.

Suddenly the crowd was parted,
People fled to left and right,
As a pair of maddened horses
At the moment dashed in sight.

No one saw the baby figure-
No one saw the golden hair,
Till a voice of frightened sweetness
Rang out on the autumn air.
'Twas too late-a moment only

Stood the beauteous vision there,
Then the little face lay lifeless,

Covered o'er with golden hair.
Reverently they raised my darling,
Brushed away the curls of gold,
Saw the stamp upon the forehead,
Growing now so icy cold.

Not a mark the face disfigured,
Showing where a hoof had trod;
But the little life was ended-
"Papa's letter" was with God.

A

Good-Night and Good-Morning.

FAIR little girl sat under a tree

Sewingas long as her eyes could see,
Then smoothed her work and folded it right,
And said, "Dear work, good-night, good-night!"

Such a number of rooks came over her head,
Crying "Caw, caw!" on their way to bed,
She said, as she watched their curious flight,
Little black things, good-night, good-night!"

The horses neighed, and the oxen lowed,
The sheep's Bleat! bleat!" came over the road;
All seeming to say, with a quiet delight,
"Good little girl, good-night, good-night!"

[ocr errors]

She did not say to the sun, Good-night!"
Though she saw him there like a ball of light;
For she knew he had God's time to keep
All over the world, and never could sleep.

The tall pink foxglove bowed his head;
The violets courtesied, and went to bed;
And good little Lucy tied up her hair,
And said, on her knees, her favorite prayer.

And, while on her pillow she softly lay,
She knew nothing more till again it was day;
And all things said to the beautiful sun,
"Good-morning good-morning! our work is begun.”
-Richard Monckton Milnes. (Lord Houghton.)

« PrejšnjaNaprej »