SECTION I-CHILDHOOD

I. WYNKEN, BLYNKEN, AND NOD

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe

Sailed on a river of misty 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 that beautiful sea;

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish—
But never afeard are we,"

So cried the stars to the fishermen three-
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

All night long their nets they threw

For the fish in the twinkling foam

Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe
Bringing the fishermen home.

'T was all so pretty a sail, it seemed

As if it could not be,

And some folks thought 't was 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.

-Eugene Field.

II. FOREIGN LANDS

(Copyright. Printed by permission of Mr. Lloyd Osbourne)

Up into the cherry-tree

Who should climb but little me?

I held the trunk with both my hands,
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next-door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping in to town.

10

5

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships,
To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy-land.

-R. L. Stevenson.

15

III. THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE

(Copyright. Printed by permission of Mr. Lloyd Osbourne)

When I was sick and lay a-bed
I had two pillows at my head
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go
With different uniforms and drills

Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

IV. SELECTIONS FROM “BROTHER AND SISTER "

(Copyright. Printed by permission of Messrs. Wm. Blackwood & Sons)

I

I cannot choose but think upon the time
When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss
At lightest thrill from the bee's swinging chime,
Because the one so near the other is.

He was the elder and a little man

Of forty inches, bound to show no dread,
And I the girl that puppy-like now ran,
Now lagged behind my brother's larger tread.

5

I held him wise, and when he talked to me
Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best,
I thought his knowledge marked the boundary
Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest.

If he said "Hush!" I tried to hold my breath;
Wherever he said "Come!" I stepped in faith.

10

II

Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,
Stroked down my tippet, set my brother's frill,
Then with the benediction of her gaze
Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still.

Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,
So rich for us, we counted them as realms

With varied products: here were earth-nuts found,