"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of his pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue-

Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,

Awaiting the touch of a little hand,

The smile of a little face;

And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,

What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

WYNKEN, BLYNKEN, AND NOD

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe,

Sailed on a river of crystal light

Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

The old moon asked the three.

"We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea;

Nets of silver and gold have we,"

Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,

As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;

The little stars were the herring-fish

That lived in the beautiful sea.

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,— Never afeard are we!"

So cried the stars to the fishermen three,

Wynken,
Blynken,

And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw

To the stars in the twinkling foam,

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home:

'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed

As if it could not be;

And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed

Of sailing that beautiful sea;

But I shall name you the fishermen three:

Wynken,

Blynken,

And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;

So shut your eyes while Mother sings

Of wonderful sights that be,

And you shall see the beautiful things

As you rock on the misty sea

Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,—

Wynken,

Blynken,
And Nod.

6. Edwin Markham (1852- ), now engaged in editorial work in New York City, was born in Oregon and spent his early life as a teacher in California, where he wrote his poem The Man with the Hoe. This is considered one of the great songs of labor.

THE MAN WITH THE HOE

(Written after seeing the painting by Millet)

God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him.-Genesis.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,

And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;

To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?

Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf

There is no shape more terrible than this

More tongued with censure of the world's blind greedMore filled with signs and portents for the soul—

More fraught with menace to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,

Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,

Is this the handiwork you give to God,

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;

Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings-
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?

Read John Vance Cheney's The Man with the Hoe. A Reply.

7. James Whitcomb Riley (1853- ), a journalist living in Indianapolis, is popularly known as "the Hoosier Poet." His verses in the dialect of the Indiana farmer are widely read and loved. He is pre-eminently the poet of the common people.

THE OLD MAN AND JIM1

Old man never had much to say—
'Ceptin' to Jim,-

And Jim was the wildest boy he had,

And the old man jes' wrapped up in him!
Never heerd him speak but once

Er twice in my life,—and first time was
When the army broke out, and Jim he went,
The old man backin' him fer three months;

And all 'at I heerd the old man say

Was, jes' as we turned to start away,

1 From Poems Here at Home, by James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1903. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

"Well, good-by, Jim:

Take keer of yourse'f!"

'Peared like he was more satisfied

Jes' lookin' at Jim

And likin' him all to hisse'f-like, see?
'Cause he was jes' wrapped up in him!
And over and over I mind the day

The old man come and stood round in the way
While we was drillin', a-watchin' Jim;

And down at the deepot a-heerin' him say,"Well, good-by, Jim:

Take keer of yourse'f!"

Never was nothin' about the farm

Disting'ished Jim;

Neighbors all ust to wonder why

The old man 'peared wrapped up in him:
But when Cap. Biggler, he writ back
'At Jim was the bravest boy we had
In the whole dern rigiment, white er black,
And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad,—
'At he had led, with a bullet clean

Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag
Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen,-
The old man wound up a letter to him
'At, Cap. read to us, 'at said,—"Tell Jim
Good-by;

And take keer of hisse'f!"

Jim come home jes' long enough

To take the whim

'At he'd like to go back in the calvery-
And the old man jes' wrapped up in him!
Jim 'lowed 'at he'd had sich luck afore,
Guessed he'd tackle her three years more.
And the old man give him a colt he'd raised,
And follered him over to Camp Ben Wade,
And laid around fer a week er so,