A MORTIFYING MISTAKE

I STUDIED my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too; But I couldn't remember six times nine, and I didn't know what to do, Till sister told me to play with my doll, and not to bother my head.

"If you call her Fifty-four' for a while, you 'll learn it by heart," she said.

So I took my favorite, Mary Ann (though I thought 't was a dreadful shame To give such a perfectly lovely child such a perfectly horrid name), And I called her my dear little "Fiftyfour" a hundred times, till I knew The answer of six times nine as well as the answer of two times two.

A MILLION LITTLE DIAMONDS

A MILLION little diamonds
Twinkled on the trees;

And all the little maidens said:
“A jewel, if you please!"

But while they held their hands outstretched,
To catch the diamonds gay,
A million little sunbeams came,
And stole them all away.

MARY FRANCES BUTTS!

ONLY ONE

HUNDREDS of stars in the pretty sky; Hundreds of shells on the shore together; Hundreds of birds that go singing by;

Hundreds of bees in the sunny weather.

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn;
Hundreds of lambs in the purple clover;
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn;
But only one mother the wide world over.
GEORGE COOPER

LULLABY

ROCKABY, lullaby, bees in the clover!
Crooning so drowsily, crying so low,
Rockaby, lullaby, dear little rover!
Down into wonderland,
Down to the under-land,
Go, now go!

Down into wonderland go.

Rockaby, lullaby, rain on the clover,
(Tears on the eyelids that waver and weep!)
Rockaby, lullaby-bending it over!
Down on the mother-world,
Down on the other world,
Sleep, oh sleep!

Down on the mother-world sleep.

Rockaby, lullaby, dew on the clover,
Dew on the eyes that will sparkle at
dawn!

Rockaby, lullaby, dear little rover !
Into the stilly world,
Into the lily world,
Gone! now gone!

Into the lily world gone.

JOSIAH GILBERT Holland)

Bee, also, p. 233.

Ring out, wild bells and tame ones too;

Ring out the lover's moon.
Ring in the little worsted socks,

Ring in the bib and spoon.
Ring out the muse, ring in the nurse,
Ring in the milk and water.
Away with paper, pen, and ink-
My daughter! O, my daughter!

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

THOUGHTS ON THE COM-
MANDMENTS

"LOVE your neighbor as yourself," -
So the parson preaches:
That's one half the Decalogue,
So the prayer-book teaches.
Half my duty I can do
With but little labor,

For with all my heart and soul

I do love my neighbor.

SHE's had a Vassar education,

n

And points with pride to her degrees; She's studied household decoration;

She knows a dado from a frieze, And tells Corots from Boldonis; A Jacquemart etching, or a Haden,

A Whistler, too, perchance might please A free and frank young Yankee maiden.

She does not care for meditation;
Within her bonnet are no bees;
She has a gentle animation,

She joins in singing simple glees.
She tries no trills, no rivalries
With Lucca (now Baronin Räden),

With Nilsson or with Gerster; she's A frank and free young Yankee maiden.

I'm blessed above the whole creation,
Far, far above all other he's;

I ask you for congratulation
On this the best of jubilees:

Over the gray leagues of ocean

The infinite yearneth alone; The forests with wandering emotion The thing they know not intone; Creation arose but to see it, A million lamps in the blue; But a lover, he shall be it,

If one sweet maid is true.

O, INEXPRESSIBLE AS SWEET

O, INEXPRESSIBLE as sweet,
Love takes my voice away;

I cannot tell thee when we meet
What most I long to say.

But hadst thou hearing in thy heart
To know what beats in mine,

Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art,
In melodies divine.

So warbling birds lift higher notes
Than to our cars belong;

The music fills their throbbing throats,
But silence steals the song.

THE ROSE OF STARS

WHEN Love, our great Immortal,
Put on mortality,
And down from Eden's portal
Brought this sweet life to be,
At the sublime archangel

He laughed with veiled eyes,
For he bore within his bosom
The seed of Paradise.

He hid it in his bosom,

And there such warmth it found, It brake in bud and blossom,

And the rose fell on the ground; As the green light on the prairie, As the red light on the sea, Through fragrant belts of summer Came this sweet life to be.

And the grave archangel seeing

Spread his mighty wings for flight, But the glow hung round him fleeing Like the rose of an Arctic night; And sadly moving heavenward

By Venus and by Mars,
He heard the joyful planets
Hail Earth, the Rose of Stars.

INTO the west of the waters on the living ocean's foam,

Into the west of the sunset where the young adventurers roam,

Into the west of the shining star, I am sailing, sailing home;

Home from the lonely cities, time's wreck, and the naked woe,

Home through the clean great waters where freemen's pennants blow,

Home to the land men dream of, where all the nations go;

'Tis home but to be on the waters, 'tis home already here,

Through the weird red-billowing sunset into the west to steer,

To fall asleep in the rocking dark with home a day more near.

II

By morning light the ship holds on, alive with happy freight,

A thousand hearts with one still joy, and with one hope elate,

To reach the land that mothered them and sweetly guides their fate;

Whether the purple furrow heaps the bows with dazzling spray,

Or buried in green-based masses they dip the storm-swept day,

Or the white fog ribbons o'er them, the strong ship holds her way; And when another day is done, by the star of love we steer

To the land of all that we love best and all that we hold dear;

We are sailing westward, homeward; our western home is near.