Volume I Part 59 (1/2)

”Sylvia, hus.h.!.+” I said, ”come here, Come see a fairy-tale, my dear!

Tales told are good, tales seen are best!”

The dove was brooding on the nest In the lowest crotch of the apple tree.

I lifted her up so quietly, That when she could have touched the bird The soft gray creature had not stirred.

It looked at us with a wild dark eye.

But, ”Birdie, fly!” was Sylvia's cry, Impatient Sylvia, ”Birdie, fly.”

Ah, well: but when I touched the nest, The child recoiled upon my breast.

Was ever such a startling thing?

Sudden silver and purple wing, The dove was out, away, across, Struggling heart-break on the gra.s.s.

And there in the cup within the tree Two milk-white eggs were ours to see.

Was ever thing so pretty? Alack, ”Birdie!” Sylvia cried, ”come back!”

Joseph Russell Taylor [1868-1933]

THE ORACLE

I lay upon the summer gra.s.s.

A gold-haired, sunny child came by, And looked at me, as loath to pa.s.s, With questions in her lingering eye.

She stopped and wavered, then drew near, (Ah! the pale gold around her head!) And o'er my shoulder stopped to peer.

”Why do you read?” she said.

”I read a poet of old time, Who sang through all his living hours-- Beauty of earth--the streams, the flowers-- And stars, more lovely than his rhyme.

”And now I read him, since men go, Forgetful of these sweetest things; Since he and I love brooks that flow, And dawns, and bees, and flash of wings!”

She stared at me with laughing look, Then clasped her hands upon my knees: ”How strange to read it in a book!

I could have told you all of these!”

Arthur Davison Ficke [1883-

TO A LITTLE GIRL

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fas.h.i.+ons of address, The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress, And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats For mother dogs, and little acts of courtesy to cats.

O connoisseur of pebbles, colored leaves and trickling rills, Whom seasons fit as do the sheaths that wrap the daffodils, Whose eyes' divine expectancy foretells some starry goal, You taught me here docility--and how to save my soul.

Helen Parry Eden [18

TO A LITTLE GIRL

Her eyes are like forget-me-nots, So loving, kind and true; Her lips are like a pink sea-sh.e.l.l Just as the sun s.h.i.+nes through; Her hair is like the waving grain In summer's golden light; And, best of all, her little soul Is, like a lily, white.

Gustav Kobbe [1857-1918]

A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON Aged Three Years And Five Months