bare,

Shaped as a stately chair,

Have, by a hearth-stone found a home

at last,

And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride Repel the ocean tide.

But, seated in this chair,

I can in rhyme

Roll back the tide of time.

I see again, as one in vision sees,
The blossoms and the bees,

And hear the children's voices call,
And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,
I hear the bellows blow,

And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat
The iron white with heat.

And thus, dear children, have ye made

for me

This day a jubilee,

And to my more than three-score years

and ten

Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like

the mind

And in it are enshrined

The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought

The giver's loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance

could

Give life to this dead wood,

And make these branches, leafless now

so long,

Blossom again in song.

Longfellow.

A SONG OF EASTER.*

Sing, children, sing,

And the lily censers swing;

Sing that life and joy are waking and that Death no more is king.

Sing the happy, happy tumult of the slowly bright'ning Spring;

Sing, little children, sing,

Sing, children, sing,

Winter wild has taken wing.

Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Reprinted by permission

Fill the air with the sweet tidings till the frosty echoes ring.

Along the eaves, the icicles no longer cling; And the crocus in the garden lifts its bright face to the sun;

And in the meadow, softly the brooks begin to run;

And the golden catkins, swing
In the warm air of the Spring-
Sing, little children, sing.

Sing, children, sing,

The lilies white you bring

In the joyous Easter morning, for hopes are

blossoming,

And as earth her shroud of snow from off her breast doth fling,

So may we cast our fetters off in God's eternal Spring;

So may we find release at last from sorrow and from pain,

Soon may we find our childhood's calm, delicious dawn again.

Sweet are your eyes, O little ones, that look with smiling grace,

Without a shade of doubt or fear into the future's face.

Sing, sing in happy chorus, with happy voices tell

That death is life, and God is good, and all things shall be well.

That bitter day shall cease

In warmth and light and peace,
That winter yields to Spring-
Sing, little children, sing.

Celia Thaxter.

THE JOY OF THE HILLS.*

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field lark's rippling notes
Lightly I sweep from steep to steep;
O'er my head through branches high
Come glimpses of deep blue sky;
The tall oats brush my horse's flanks:
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks,
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life's hoard of regret-

All the terror and pain of a chafing chain.

#Ru normission from Edwin Markhamla • Tow of the Wills and Other

Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.

Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;

I ride with the voices of waterfalls.

I swing on as one in a dream - I swing.
Down the very hollows, I shout, I sing.
The world is gone like an empty word;
My body's a bough in the wind,- my heart
a bird.

-Edwin Markham.

IN BLOSSOM TIME.

Its O my heart, my heart,

To be out in the sun and sing,

To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and blossoming.

Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover-
beds;

There are none of you as glad as I.