gold:
"Time to get up," says Great King Sun.
Though the garden beds are sprinkled with snow,
It's time to get up in the earth below.

Who wakes first? A pale little maid,
All in her nightgown opens the door,
Peering round as if half afraid
Before she steps out on the wintry floor.
All in their nightgowns, snowdrops stand,
White little waifs in a lonely land.

Great King Sun with a smile looks down,--
"Where are your sisters? I want them, too!"
Each baby is hurrying into her gown,
Purple and saffron, orange and blue,
Great King Sun gives a louder call,--
"Good morning, Papa!" cry the babies all.

W. Graham Robertson.

_A Mystery_

Flowers from clods of clay and mud!
Flowers so bright, and grass so green!
Tell me, blade, and leaf, and bud,
How it is you're all so clean.

If my fingers touch these sods,
See, they're streaked with sticky earth;
Yet you spring from clayey clods,
Pure, and fresh, and fair from birth.

Do you wash yourselves at night,
In a bath of diamond dew,
That you look so fresh and bright
When the morning dawns on you?

God, perhaps, sends summer showers,
When the grass grows grey for rain,
To wash the faces of His flowers,
And bid His fields be green again.

Tell me, blade, and leaf, and bud;
Flowers so fair, and grass so green,
Growing out of clay and mud,
How it is you're all so clean.

Gabriel Setoun.

_Meadow Talk_

"Don't pick all the flowers!" cried Daisy one day
To a rosy-cheeked boy who was passing her way;
"If you take every one, you will very soon see
That when next summer comes, not a bud will there be!"

"Quite true!" said the Clover,
"And over and over
I've sung that same song
To whoe'er came along."

Quoth the Buttercup, "I
Have not been at all shy
In impressing that rule
On each child of the school."

"I've touched the same subject,"
Said Timothy Grass.
"'Leave just a few flowers!'
I beg, as they pass."

Sighed a shy little Fern,
From her home in the shade,
"About pulling up roots,
What a protest I've made!"

"The children are heedless!"
The Gentian declared,
"When my blossom-time comes,