hick
O'er flower-bed and clover-rick,
When little Miss Penelope,
Who watched them from grandfather's knee.

Said, "Grandpa, what's a butterfly?"
And, "Where do flowers go when they die?"
For questions hard as hard can be
I recommend Penelope.

But grandpa had a playful way
Of dodging things too hard to say,
By giving fantasies instead
Of serious answers, so he said,

"Whene'er a tired old flower must die,
Its soul mounts in a butterfly;
Just now a dozen snow-wings sped
From out that white petunia bed;

"And if you'll search, you'll find, I'm sure,
A dozen shrivelled cups or more;
Each pansy folds her purple cloth,
And soars aloft in velvet moth.

"So when tired sunflower doffs her cap
Of yellow frills to take a nap,
'Tis but that this surrender brings
Her soul's release on golden wings."

"But _is this so_? It ought to be,"
Said little Miss Penelope,
"Because I'm _sure_, dear grandpa, _you_
Would only tell the thing that's _true_.

"Are all the butterflies that fly
Real angels of the flowers that die?"
Grandfather's eyes looked far away
As if he scarce knew what to say.

"Dear little Blossom," stroking now
The golden hair upon her brow,
"I--can't--exactly--say--I--know--it,
I only heard it from a poet.

"And poets' eyes see wondrous things,
Great mysteries of flowers and wings.
And marvels of the earth and sea
And sky, they tell us constantly.

"But we can never prove them right,
Because we lack their finer sight;
And they, lest we should think them wrong,
Weave their strange stories into song

"So _beautiful_, so _seeming true_,
So confidently stated too,
That we, not knowing yes or no,
Can only _hope they may be so_."

"But, grandpapa, no tale should close
With _if's_ or _buts_ or _may-be-sos_,
So let us play we're poets, too,
And then we'll _know_ that this is true."

NEW THINGS THAT ARE OLD.

In spite of the protests of inventors, and of those who believe they
have investigated everything since the deluge, that there is nothing new
under the sun, the Psalmist was right when he put that thought into the
colloquial language. On the Assyrian slabs, and on more than one old
European fresco, is seen the paddle-wheel for boats, although the
propeller is not in evidence. The bicycle seems to have been known in
China more than two hundred years ago, and the velocipede was seen in