her Goose.]

A MESSAGE TO MOTHER GOOSE.

By Ellen Manly.

Once on a time there lived a child--so it was told to me--
Who never heard of Mother Goose and her fine family.
The man who lived up in the moon he saw her with his eyes,
And told the shocking story to the Man so Wondrous Wise,
Who said the proper thing to do in such a case would be
To send the dreadful news at once to good old Mother G.

So off he ran to Old King Cole and told the Fiddlers Three,
And Old King Cole said, "Bless my soul! such things must never be!"
And, putting up his pipe, dispatched a Fiddler in a trice
To find Jack Horner and request the aid of his advice.

Jack Horner cried; "Alack-a-day! and can it really be,
There lives a child who never heard about my pie and me?
I cannot spread the news myself--I'm busy finding plums.
You'd better ask the King of France when next this way he comes!"

The King of France was close at hand, a-marching up the hill,
But kindly turned his men about to search for Jack and Jill;
And Jack and Jill, with all good-will, they hunted up Bo-Peep,
And then they wakened poor Boy Blue, beside the hay asleep.

Bo-Peep she left her wandering sheep; Boy Blue he blew his horn,
And sent the Knave of Hearts to tell the Maiden all Forlorn.
John Barleycorn, he heard the news, and Tom the Piper's Son;
And Tom set out to find John Stout as fast as he could run.

The story shocked Miss Muffet so she dropped her curds and whey
And flew to Mother Hubbard's house, but found her gone away
To buy her poor old dog a bone, and so she told Jack Sprat
As he was lecturing Tommy Green for drowning pussy cat.

Brave Tommy Tucker stopped his song at hearing what she said,
And, quite forgetting supper-time, his butter and his bread,
To Mary Quite Contrary went, as in the garden row
She raked the shells and silver bells that she had coaxed to grow!

Then Mary left her precious flowers and ran with might and main,
(The Man in Leather lent his coat in case it chanced to rain),
And came to Mother Goose's farm before Bow Bells could ring,
Which, Little Polly Flinders said, was quite a lucky thing.

Within her cosy little house beneath the jimcrack-tree
The worthy dame was just about to brew a cup of tea.
But when she heard