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When your heart began to stir,
As the snow began to melt!

Do you mind the darkness
As I used to do?

You are not as old as I:

I can comfort you.

The little noises that you hear

Are winds that come and go. The world is always kind and safe, Whether you see or no;

And if you think that there are eyes
About you near and far,
Perhaps the fairies are watching, -
I know the angels are.

I think you must be lonely
When all the colors fail,

And moonlight makes the garden
So massy and so pale;
And anything might come at last
Out of those heaps of shade.
I would stay beside you
If I were not afraid!
Children have no right to go
Abroad in night and gloom;
But you are as safe in the garden
As I am in my room.

White Rose, do you love me?

I only wish you'd say!

I would work hard to please you

If I but knew the way.

It seems so hard to be loving,
And not a sign to see

But the silence and the sweetness
For all as well as me.
I think you nearly perfect,

In spite of all your scorns;
But, White Rose, if I were you,
I wouldn't have those thorns!

STARS.

ANONYMOUS.

How pretty is each little star,

Each tiny twinkler, soft and meek! Yet many in this world there are

Who do not know that stars can speak.

To them the skies are meaningless,
A star is not a living thing;
They cannot hear the messages
Those shining creatures love to bring.
Hush listen! ah! it will not do;
You do but listen with your ears;
And stars are understood by few,
For it must be the heart that hears.

Look up, not only with your eyes;
Ah! do you hear a tender sound?
To hearts familiar with the skies,

The stars are nearer than the ground.

THE WORLD.

"LILLIPUT LEVEE."

GREAT, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast-
World, you are beautifully drest!

The wonderful air is over me,

And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree;
It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself on the top of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go,

With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow,
With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles,
And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah, you are so great, and I am so small,
I tremble to think of you, World, at all ;
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper inside me seemed to say,

"You are more than the Earth, though you are such

a dot:

You can love and think, and the Earth cannot."

PLAYTIME.

TOPSY-TURVY WORLD.

"LILLIPUT Levee."

IF the butterfly courted the bee,
And the owl the porcupine;
If churches were built in the sea,
And three times one was nine;
If the pony rode his master;

If the buttercups ate the cows;
If the cat had the dire disaster
To be worried, sir, by the mouse;
If mamma, sir, sold the baby

To a gypsy for half a crown; If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,

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The world would be Upside Down! If any or all of these wonders

Should ever come about,

I should not consider them blunders, For I should be Inside Out!

LITTLE MAMMA.

CHARLES HENRY WEBB.

WHY is it the children don't love me As they do mamma?

That they put her ever above me— "Little mamma ?"

I'm sure I do all that I can do.

What more can a rather big man do, Who can't be mamma

66

Little mamma?

Any game that the tyrants suggest,
'Logomachy," which I detest,
Doll-babies, hop-scotch, or base-ball,
I'm always on hand at the call.
When Noah and the others embark,
I'm the elephant saved in the ark.
I creep, and I climb, and I crawl-
By turns am the animals all.

For the show on the stair
I'm always the bear,

The chimpanzee, or the kangaroo.

It is never "Mamma,

Little mamma,

Won't you?"

My umbrella's the pony,

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None ride on mamma's parasol;

I'm supposed to have always the penny

For bon-bons, and beggars, and all.

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