The dormouse loved its dangling twigs,
The birds sweet music bore;

It stood a glory in its place,
A blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern;

A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary men might turn.
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink;

He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that Toil might drink.
He passed again and lo! the well,

By summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, And saved a life beside.

A dreamer dropped a random thought;

'Twas old and yet 'twas new;

A simple fancy of the brain,

But strong in being true.
It shone upon a genial mind,
And lo, its light became
A lamp of life, a beacon ray,
A monitory flame.

The thought was small its issue great,

A watch fire on the hill.

It sheds its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still.

A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,

Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied, from the heart.

A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath,

It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.

WHITTLING

JOHN PIERPONT

He was

John Pierpont was born in Litchfield, Conn., in 1785. first tutor, then lawyer, then merchant, and finally preacher. He was always a poet, and wrote with considerable skill and force.

HE Yankee boy, before he's sent to school,

THE

Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns while he hears his mother's lullaby;

His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,
Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it;
And in the education of the lad

No little part that implement hath had.

His pocket knife to the young whittler brings
A growing knowledge of material things.

Projectiles, music, and the sculptor's art,
His chestnut whistle, and his shingle dart,

His elder popgun with its hickory rod,
Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,
His cornstalk fiddle, and the deeper tone

That murmurs from his pumpkin stalk trombone,
Conspire to teach the boy. To these succeed
His bow, his arrow of a feathered reed,
His windmill, raised the passing breeze to win,
His water wheel, that turns upon a pin;

Or, if his father lives upon the shore,

You'll see his ship, "beam ends upon the floor," Full rigged, with raking masts, and timbers stanch, And waiting, near the washtub, for a launch.

Thus, by his genius and his jackknife driven,
Ere long he'll solve you any problem given;
Make any jimcrack, musical or mute,
A plow, a couch, an organ, or a flute;
Make you a locomotive or a clock,
Cut a canal, or build a floating dock,
Or lead forth beauty from a marble block;
Make anything, in short, for sea or shore,
From a child's rattle to a seventy-four;

Make it, said I?— Ay, when he undertakes it,
He'll make the thing, and the machine that makes it.

And when the thing is made, whether it be

To move on earth, in air, or on the sea;
Whether on water, o'er the waves to glide,
Or, upon land to roll, revolve, or slide;
Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring,
Whether it be a piston or a spring,

Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass,
The thing designed shall surely come to pass;
For, when his hand's upon it, you may know
That there's go in it, and he'll make it go.

THE CORN SONG

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

The principal crop of the Pilgrims was maize or Indian corn. Its importance to the Pilgrims led the poet Whittier to write the follow

To cheer us when the storm shall drift

Our harvest fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,

Our plows their furrows made,

While on the hills the sun and showers

Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain, Beneath the sun of May,

And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and mellow hair.

And now, with Autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest time has come,

We pluck away the frosted leaves,

And bear the treasure home.

There richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,

Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,

And knead its meal of gold.

Let vapid idlers loll in silk

Around their costly board;

Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth

Sends up its smoky curls,

Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls.

Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn

The blessing of our hardy grain,

Our wealth of golden corn.

CH. LIT. V. - -8