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Jessie is both kind and true,
Heart of gold and will of yew;
Will of yew and heart of gold—
Still her charms are scarcely told.

If she yet remain unsung,
Pretty, constant, docile, young.
What remains not here compiled?

Jessie is a little child!

A Garden

of Girls

BRET HARTE.

Olivia

She gamboll'd on the greens
A baby-germ, to when
The maiden blossoms of her teens
Could number five from ten.

I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain-
And hear me with thine ears-

That tho' I circle in the grain

Five hundred rings of years,

Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass

So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass.

Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,

And livelier than a lark

A Garden of Girls

She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.

A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,

As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child.

But light as any wind that blows,
So fleetly did she stir,

The flower she touch'd on, dipt and rose,

And turned to look at her.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

From "The Talking Oak."

Nikolina

O tell me, little children, have you seen her-
The tiny maid from Norway, Nikolina?
O, her eyes are blue as cornflow'rs mid the corn,
And her cheeks are rosy red as skies of morn!

Nikolina! swift she turns if any call her,
As she stands among the poppies, hardly taller,
Breaking off their scarlet cups for
you,
With spikes of slender larkspur, burning blue.

In her little garden many a flower is growing-
Red, gold, and purple in the soft wind blowing

gay

But the child that stands amid the blossoms
Is sweeter, quainter, brighter e'en than they.
CELIA THAXTER.

A Garden

of Girls

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard,
In springtime from the cuckoo bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

A Garden of Girls

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;-
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

We, Hermia,

Helena and Hermia

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart,

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry

Due but to one, and crownéd with one crest.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

From "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

A Garden of Giris

Phyllis

In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her eyne,
Phyllis beneath an oak

Sat milking her fair flock;

'Mongst that sweet-strained moisture, rare de

light,

Her hand seemed milk, in milk it was so white.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

So Sweet Is She

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touched it?

Have marked but the fall of the snow,

you

Before the soil hath smutched it?

Have you felt the wool of the beaver?

Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the brier?
Or the nard i' the fire?

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