THE SICK CHILD This delightful and dearly-beloved author was often ill in childhood. He remembers in this touching poem what a feverish child thinks and fears, and how strange a sense there is of things too near and things too far. How lovely are the lines spoken by the mother about "the birds and the hills of sheep "! CHILD O MOTHER, lay your hand on my brow! MOTHER Fear not at all; the night is still, CHILD Mother, mother, speak low in my ear, I have a fear that I cannot say. What have I done, and what do I fear, MOTHER Out in the city sounds begin, Thank the kind God, the carts come in! Then shall my child go sweetly asleep, So in the dream-beleaguered night, Quiet, and the stars are high, O, when all golden comes the day, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. DON QUIXOTE When knights and chivalry were going out of fashion, a Spanish author, Cervantes, wrote a comic and yet sad caricature of a knight he called Don Quixote, who went about looking for adventures. He rode a melancholy horse, and fancied that he was protecting beautiful ladies in distress and fighting giants and other enemies. He fancied that even some windmills were enemies; and he made his lance ready, put spurs to his horse, and charged them. Austin Dobson thought there were worse things in the later world than such heroes as this poor knight. BEHIND thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack, Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro, Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe, And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back, Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack! To make wiseacredom, both high and low, Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track: Alas, poor knight! Alas, poor soul possest! Yet would to-day when courtesy grows chill, And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, Some fire of thine might burn within us still! Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest. were it but a mill. AUSTIN DOBSON. THE REAPER The rich imagery, in so few words, all holds together perfectly the sickle of the moon, the reaping, the granary. : TELL me whither, maiden June, "Fields of fancy by the stream JOHN BANISTER TABB. GOD'S LIKENESS A lovely lesson of charity between every man and his neighbour. Nor in mine own, but in my neighbour's face Must I Thine image trace: Nor he in his, but in the light of mine, Behold Thy face divine. JOHN BANISTER TABB. HOLY GROUND PAUSE where apart the fallen sparrow lies, And lightly tread; For there the pity of a Father's eyes Enshrines the dead. JOHN BANISTER TABB. "MAMMY" The negro nurse of American children born in the Southern states of the Union had the pet name of Mammy." This poet (a Catholic priest) was blind for some years before his death. He, an American, writes of his nurse's black face; and, as usual, puts much fine meaning and imagination into a very few beautiful lines. I LOVED her countenance whereon, The tenderness of visions gone Of darkness I am not afraid— It is my Mammy's face. JOHN BANISTER TABB. THE BROOK The brook is speaking, expressing an idea most fit for poetry-the carrying of the mountain's message to the sea. It is the mountain to the sea That makes a messenger of me: And I have many a mile to go. JOHN BANISTER TABB. |