The boyish, silent homage
To child and bride unknown,
The pitying tender sorrow
Kept in his heart alone,
Now laid upon the coffin
With a purple flower, might be
Told to the cold dead sleeper;
The rest could only see
A fragrant purple blossom,
Plucked from a Judas-tree.
THE TRUE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE.
ITTLE boy blue, so the story goes,
One morning while reading fell fast asleep, When he should have been, as every one knows, Watching the cows and sheep.
you children remember what
Came of the nap on that summer morn;
How the sheep got into the meadow-lot,
The cows got into the corn.
Neglecting a duty is wrong, of course,
But I've always felt, if we could but know,
That the matter was made a great deal worse
Than it should have been;
and so
I find, in my sifting, that there was one
More to blame than Little Boy Blue.
I'm anxious to have full justice done,
And so I know are you,
The one to blame I have found to be,
I'm sorry to say it, Little Bo-Peep;
But you will remember, perhaps, that she
Had trouble about her sheep.
ell, Little Bo-Peep came tripping along,
The sheep she tended were running at large;
Little Boy Blue sat singing a song,
Faithfully minding his charge.
Said Little Bo-Peep, "It's a burning shame
That you should sit here from week to week;
Just leave your work, and we'll play a game
Oh!-well, of hide and seek.
It was dull work, and he liked to play
Better, I'm sure, than to eat or sleep;
He liked the bloom of the summer day;
He liked he liked Bo-Peep.
And so, with many a laugh and shout,
They hid from each other-now here, now there; And whether the cows were in or out
Bo-Peep had never a care.
"I will hide once more," said the little maid,
"You shall not find me this time, I say-
Shut your eyes up tight" (Boy Blue obeyed)-
"Under this stack of hay."
"Now, wait till I call," said Miss Bo-Peep,
And over the meadows she slipped away,
With never a thought for cows or sheep-
Alas! alas! the day.
And long and patiently waited he
For the blithesome call from her rosy lip.
He waited in vain-quite like, you see,
The boy on the burning ship.
She let down the bars, did Miss Bo Peep-
Such trifles as bars she held in scorn-
And into the meadows went the sheep,
And the cows went into the corn.
By and by, when they found Boy Blue
In the merest doze, he took the blame.
It was very fine, I think, don't you,
Not to mention Bo-Peep's name?
Thus it has happened that all these years
He has borne the blame she ought to share. Since I know the truth of it, it appears To me to be only fair
To tell the story from shore to shore,
From sea to sea, and from sun to sun,
Because, as I think I said before,
I like to see justice done.
And whatever you've read or seen or heard
Believe me, children, I tell the true,
And only genuine (take my word)
Story of Little Boy Blue.
THE long, bright day of barvest toil is past,
The fragrant sheaves are bound, the reapers gone
Slowly from out the west the yellow rays of
Ripening sunshine die, hushed song and jest;
And from the sacrifice by priestly hands
Sweet, spicy incense, like a voiceless prayer,
Floats upon perfumed wings to Mercy's throne.
Down cloudy pathway walks the coming night,
Casting mysterious shadows in her way,
Shadows that fill each sense with vague alarm,
More frightful for their very nothingness.
Look! how the shrinking moon creeps up the skies,
Holding with trembling hand her silver lamp,
Hiding her face behind a filmy veil,
As if she dared not look upon
Of the dread something which her light reveals.
See! See! On Gibbeah's Hill, what phantoms rise,
Swinging and swaying idly to and fro,
Against the mantle of the startled night,
Like nameless terrors creeping through a dream.
Great God! these shapes are men!
See how they hang within the shadows of the shivering
Like haunting ghosts, between fair earth and heaven, Men-with stony eye-balls looking down
Soulless and lifeless into other eyes
Eyes full of mother-love gone mad with woe.
Sure earth below, or pitying Heaven above,
Saw never sight so strangely pitiful:
Rizpah, her poor, gray tresses all unbound,
Each nerve and muscle held by mighty will
Fearless in all her agony of love,
Guarding her precious dead against the vultures,
Tossing her thin, bare arms with gestures wild,
To fright them as they whirl and circle low,
With flapping wings and harsh, discordant cries,
Eager to taste the horrid feast of death.
Hark! how the frenzied voice disturbs the night,
And look how grief and dread have marked her face
With awful lines of passionate despair.
"Back! back! ye shall not touch one shining hair, Or fan the poor, dead cheeks with poisonous wings; What can ye do with aught so fair?
Go! find your prey amid unholier things.
Back! let your sickening greed elsewhere be fed,
A mother watches o'er this precious child;
Mine own, mine only! why, alas! do I,
I, in whose sluggish veins the life moves slow,
Still cumber earth's fair ways, while ye must die
In all the strength of manhood's lusty glow?
Why might not I for broken vows atone,
And give this life for thine, mine own, mine own?
Heavens! how their nerveless bodies in the breeze
Float ever to and fro and to and fro,
Swaying in silence through the trembling trees,
Like pendulums, to count my hours of woe,
Hours crowding up like horror's dark abyss.
O patient God! was ever sight like this?
My sons! My sons! are those the love-lit eyes
Whose merry glances warmed my heart like wine?
Are those the cheeks once bright with life's rich dyes!
Those the red lips whose sweetness clung to mine?
Is it a dream? Still I wake, ere while
Wake to their living glance, and touch, and smile.
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