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Whenever a little child is born,
All night a soft wind rocks the corn,
One more butter-cup wakes to the morn,
Somewhere.
One more rose-bud shy will unfold,
One more grass-blade push through the mould,
One more bird’s song the air will hold,
Somewhere.
—Agnes L. Carter.
SWEET AND LOW.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
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;
This is the ferry for Shadowtown;
It always sails at the end of the day,
Just as the darkness closes down.
Rest little head, on my shoulder, so;
A sleepy kiss is the only fare;
Drifting away from the world, we go,
Baby and I in the rocking-chair.
See where the fire-logs glow and spark,
Glitter the lights of the shadowland,
The raining drops on the window, hark!
Are ripples lapping upon its strand.
There, where the mirror is glancing dim,
A lake lies shimmering, cool and still.
Blossoms are waving above its brim,
Those over there on the window-sill.
Rock slow, more slow in the dusky light,
Silently lower the anchor down:
Dear little passenger, say “Good-night.”
We’ve reached the harbor of Shadowtown.
—Anon.
MY SHADOW.
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward, you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
—Robert Louis Stevenson.
QUITE LIKE A STOCKING.
Just as morn was fading amid her misty rings,
And every stocking was stuffed with childhood’s precious things,
Old Kris Kringle looked round and saw on the elm tree bough
High hung, an oriole’s nest, lonely and empty now.
“Quite like a stocking,” he laughed, “hung up there in the tree,
I didn’t suppose the birds expected a visit from me.”
Then old Kris Kringle who loves a joke as well as the best,
Dropped a handful of snowflakes into the oriole’s empty nest.
—Anon.
THE OWL AND
