Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone?" The words leapt like a leaping sword: 31 "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he paced his deck,

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night

Of all dark nights! And then a speckA light! A light! At last a light! 36 It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world. Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!" 40

EUGENE FIELD (1850-1895)

SEEIN' THINGS1

I ain't afraid uv snakes or toads, or bugs or worms or mice,

An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I

think are awful nice!

I'm pretty brave I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,

For, when I'm tucked up warm an'

snug an' when my prayers are said, Mother tells me "Happy Dreams" an' takes away the light,

An' leaves me lyin' all alone an' seein' things at night!

Sometimes they're in the corner, some

times they're by the door, Sometimes they're all a-standin' in the

middle uv the floor;

Sometimes they are a-sittin' down, sometimes they're walkin' round So softly and so creepy-like they never make a sound! Sometimes they are as black as ink,

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an' other times they're whiteBut color ain't no difference when you

see things at night!

Once, when I licked a feller 'at had just moved on our street, An' father sent me up to bed without a bite to eat,

I woke up in the dark an' saw things standin' in a row,

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A-lookin' at me cross-eyed an' p'intin' at me-so!

To all the little children:-The happy ones; and sad ones;

The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;

The good ones-Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups and saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

From the Biographical Edition of The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,

And the rooster's hally looyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,

With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

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The jester doffed his cap and bells, And stood the mocking court before; They could not see the bitter smile Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee Upon the monarch's silken stool; 10 His pleading voice arose: "O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart From red with wrong to white as wool;

The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord, 15 Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

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