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How beautiful on harvest slopes,
To see the sunshine lie;
Or on the paler reaped fields,
Where yellow shocks stands high!

Oh, yes! I love the sunshine!
Like kindness or like mirth,
Upon a human countenance,

Is sunshine on the earth!

MARY HOWITT.

9. THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF.

"Oh! call my brother back to me!

I cannot play alone;

The summer comes with flower and bee

Where is my brother gone?

The butterfly is glancing bright,
Across the sunbeam's track;

I care not now to chase its flight
Oh! call my brother back!

-

The flowers run wild the flowers we sow'd
Around our garden tree;

Our vine is drooping with its load

Oh! call him back to me!"

"He would not hear thy voice, fair child,

He may not come to thee;

The face that once like Spring-time smiled,
On earth no more thou'lt see!

"A rose's brief bright life of joy: Such unto him was given:

Go thou must play alone, my boy!

Thy brother is in heaven!"

"And has he left his birds and flowers;
And must I call in vain?

And through the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?

"And by the brook and in the glade, Are all our wanderings o'er?

Oh! while my brother with me play'd,

Would I had loved him more!"

FELICIA HEMANS.

9. THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE.

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills:

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

R. L. STEVENSON.

10. YOUTH AND MANHOOD.

Youth, that pursuest with such eager pace
Thy even way,

Thou pantest on, to win a mournful race:
Then stay! oh, stay!

Pause and luxuriate in thy sunny plain;
Loiter, enjoy :

Once past, thou never wilt come back again,
A second boy.

The hills of manhood wear a noble face,
When seen from far;

The mist of light from which they take their grace
Hides what they are.

The dark and weary path those cliffs between
Thou canst not know,

And how it leads to regions never-green,
Dead fields of snow.

Pause, while thou mayst, nor deem that fate thy gain, Which, all too fast,

Will drive thee forth from this delicious plain,

A man at last.

LORD HOUGHTON.

11. DOLLY AND DICK.

Dolly came into the meadow
And sat on the grass to cry;
Her tears made the daisies wither,
And the yellow buttercups die.

The little birds heard her sobbing;
Their songs broke off in surprise:
What could have happened to Dolly,

That she had such sorrowful eyes?

"I am unhappy!" cried Dolly, Sobbing aloud in despair;

"I fought with Dick in the garden, And pulled out a lot of his hair."

Softly there flew down a robin
A dear little redbreast bird;
His voice was clear as the ripples

Of a pool which the wind has stirred:

"After the night comes the morning,
After the winter the spring:
We can begin again, Dolly,
And be sorry for everything.

"It is a pity to quarrel;

I think it never is right:
But if you fight in the day-time,
You can make it up in the night.

"We love, and so we are happy; No beautiful thing ever ends:

'Tis good to cry and be sorry,

But better to kiss and be friends."

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"What made you come back?" asked Dicky, As they kissed on the nursery stairs.

"I met," said Dolly, "a robin

Who, I think, was saying his prayers."

E. COXHEAD.

12. A CHILD'S SONG.

"I see the Moon, and the Moon sees me,
God bless the Moon, and God bless me."

Old Rhyme.

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
All that love me.

Are you tired with rolling, and never
Resting to sleep?

Why look so pale, and so sad, as for ever
Wishing to weep?

Ask me not this, little child! if you love me;
You are too bold;

I must obey my dear Father above me
And do as I'm told.

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
All that love me.

LORD HOUGHTON.

13. THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

What hidest thou in thy treasure-caves and cells,
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-coloured shells,
Bright things which gleam unrecked of and in vain.
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy Sea!

We ask not such from thee.

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