Woods and cornfields a little brown,

The picture must not be overbright,Yet all in the golden and gracious light Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.

Alway and alway, night and morn,

Woods upon woods, with fields of corn Lying between them, not quite sere,

And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,

When the wind can hardly find breathing room Under their tassels, cattle near,

Biting shorter the short green grass,
And a hedge of sumac and sassafras,
With bluebirds twittering all around,-
Ah! good painter, you can't paint sound!

These, and the house where I was born,
Low and little, and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,
Heads and shoulders clear outside,

And fair young faces all ablush:

Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding, the selfsame way,

Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,

A lady, the loveliest ever the sun

Looked down upon, you must paint for me:
Oh! if I could only make you see
The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,

The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while,

I need not speak these foolish words; Yet one word tells you all I would say, She is my mother: you will agree, That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins, at her knee,
You must paint, sir; one like me,

The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise:

At ten years old he went to sea,
God knoweth if he be living now!
He sailed in the good ship "Commodore";
Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more
Since that old ship went out of the bay

With my great-hearted brother on her deck: I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee; That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the fields one summer night,

We were together, half afraid

Of the corn leaves' rustling, and of the shade Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,Loitering till after the low, little light

Of the candle shone through the open door,
And over the haystack's pointed top,
All of a tremble, and ready to drop,
The first half-hour, the great yellow star
That we, with our staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see
Propped and held in its place in the skies
By the fork of a tall, red mulberry tree,
Which close in the edge of our flax field grew,

Dead at the top-just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool From which it tenderly shook the dew

Over our heads, when we came to play

In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs; The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,

Not so big as a straw of wheat;

The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
But cried and cried till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?

If you can, pray,

have the grace

To put it solely in the face

Of the urchin that is likest me:

I think 'twas solely mine, indeed;

But that's no matter - paint it so:
The eyes of our mother, take good heed,
Looking not on the nest full of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces, down to our lies,
And, oh! with such injured reproachful surprise!

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
A sharp blade struck through it.

That you on the canvas are to repeat

You, sir, know

Things that are fairest, things most sweet,

Woods, and cornfields, and mulberry tree,

The mother her lads, with their bird, at her knee;
But, oh! that look of reproachful woe!

High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you'll paint me the picture and leave that out!

THE FAIRIES.

(SONG FOR CHILDREN.)

BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

[Irish songwright; born Ballyshannon, County Donegal, in 1828; son of a local banker, clerk in the bank some years, then in the customs; assistant editor Fraser's Magazine, 1870-1874, then chief editor succeeding Froude; died 1889. He published "Poems" (1850); "Day and Night Songs" (1854); "Lawrence Bloomfield; or, Richard Poor in Ireland" (1864); two anthologies (1862 and 1865); "The Rambles of Patricius Walker" (1872), in Fraser's Magazine; "Ashby Manor," a play (1882); etc.]

UP THE airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men:
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather.