A MORTIFYING MISTAKE

I STUDIED my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too;

But I could n't remember six times nine, and I did n'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

See, also, p. 233.

I looked and looked - and laughed ! It seemed so curious that she

Should cross the Unknown water,
And moor herself within my room -
My daughter! O, my daughter!

Yet by these presents witness all
She's welcome fifty times,

And comes consigned in hope and love·
And common-metre rhymes.
She has no manifest but this;

No flag floats o'er the water;
She's too new for the British Lloyds -
My daughter! O, my daughter!

Ring out, wild bells too;

and tame ones

AN AMERICAN GIRL

SHE's had a Vassar education,
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: