Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories Part 43

CHARLES MACKAY

WINDY NIGHTS

Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet.

A man goes riding by, Late at night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Whenever the trees are crying aloud, And s.h.i.+ps are tossed at sea, By, on the highway, low and loud, By at the gallop goes he.

By at the gallop he goes, and then By he comes back at the gallop again.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

THE WONDERFUL WORLD

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful gra.s.s 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 hardly can think of you, World, at all; And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, My mother kissed me, and said, quite gay,

"If the wonderful World is great to you, And great to father and mother, too, You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot!

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

WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS

HARK! HARK! THE LARK

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies;

And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes; With every thing that pretty bin, My lady sweet, arise; Arise, arise.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

JOG ON, JOG ON

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a; A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SWEET STORY OF OLD

I think when I read that sweet story of old, When Jesus was here among men, How He call'd little children as lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with them then.

I wish that His hands had been placed on my head, That His arm had been thrown around me, And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, "Let the little ones come unto me."

Yet still to His footstool in prayer I may go, And ask for a share in His love; And if I thus earnestly seek Him below, I shall see Him and hear Him above;

In that beautiful place He has gone to prepare For all who are washed and forgiven; And many dear children shall be with Him there, For of such is the kingdom of heaven.

But thousands and thousands who wander and fall, Never heard of that heavenly home; I wish they could know there is room for them all, And that Jesus has bid them to come.

JEMIMA LUKE

MY SHADOW

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see, He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see; I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the s.h.i.+ning dew on every b.u.t.tercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed!