Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green Sports
In living letters, told her fairy-tales,
Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass,
The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms,
The petty marestail forest, fairy pines,
Or from the tiny pitted target blew
What looked a flight of fairy arrows aim'd
All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes
For Edith and himself."
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
Going A-Nutting
No clouds are in the morning sky,
The vapors hug the stream,-
Who says that life and love can die
In all this northern gleam?
At every turn the maples burn,
The quail is whistling free,
The partridge whirs, and the frosted burs
Are dropping for you and me.
Ho! hilly ho! heigh O!
Hilly ho!
In the clear October morning.
Along our path the woods are bold,
And glow with ripe desire;
The yellow chestnut showers its gold,
The sumachs spread their fire;
The breezes feel as crisp as steel,
The buckwheat tops are red:
Then down the lane, love, scurry again,
And over the stubble tread!
Ho! hilly ho! heigh O!
Hilly ho!
In the clear October morning.
EDMUND CLARENCE Stedman.
The Yankee boy, before he's sent to school,
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother's lullaby;
His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,
Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it;
And in the education of the lad
No little part that implement hath had.
His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings
A growing knowledge of material things.
Projectiles, music, and the sculptor's art,
His chestnut whistle and his shingle cart,
His elder pop-gun, with its hickory rod,
Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,
His corn-stalk fiddle, and the deeper tone.
That murmurs from his pumpkin-stalk trom-
Conspire to teach the boy. To these succeed
His bow, his arrow of a feathered reed,
His windmill, raised the passing breeze to win,
His water-wheel, that turns upon a pin,
Or, if his father lives upon the shore,
You'll see his ship, "beam ends upon the floor,"
Full rigged, with raking masts, and timbers
staunch,
And waiting, near the wash-tub, for a launch.
Thus, by his genius and his jack-knife driven
Ere long he'll solve you any problem given;
Make any gimcrack, musical or mute,
A plough, a couch, an organ, or a flute;
Make you a locomotive or a clock,
Cut a canal, or build a floating-dock,
Or lead forth beauty from a marble block;—
Make anything, in short, for sea or shore,
From a child's rattle to a seventy-four;-
Make it, said I?—Ay, when he undertakes it,
He'll make the thing and the machine that makes
it.
And when the thing is made,-whether it be
To move on earth, in air, or on the sea;
Whether on water, o'er the waves to glide,
Or, upon land to roll, revolve, or slide;
Sports Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring, and Whether it be a piston or a spring,
Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass,
The thing designed shall surely come to pass;
For, when his hand's upon it, you may know
That there's go in it, and he'll make it go.
JOHN PIER PONT.
Hunting Song
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear!
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling.
Merrily, merrily mingle they,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray,
Springlets in the dawn are steaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming,
And foresters have busy been
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd;
You shall see him brought to bay;
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."
Louder, louder chant the lay
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern huntsman! who can balk,
Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk;
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!
Rise! Sleep no more! 'Tis a noble morn!
The dews hang thick on the fringéd thorn,
And the frost shrinks back like a beaten hound,
Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!
Our horses are ready and steady,-So, ho!
I'm gone like a dart from the Tartar's bow.
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