The blessings that never were bought or sold,
And center there, are better than gold.

_Alexander Smart._

October's Bright Blue Weather

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle, golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and threes together,
And count like misers hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

_Helen Hunt Jackson._

Brier-Rose

Said Brier-Rose's mother to the naughty Brier-Rose:
"What _will_ become of you, my child, the Lord Almighty knows.
You will not scrub the kettles, and you will not touch the broom;
You never sit a minute still at spinning-wheel or loom."

Thus grumbled in the morning, and grumbled late at eve,
The good-wife as she bustled with pot and tray and sieve;
But Brier-Rose, she laughed and she cocked her dainty head:
"Why, I shall marry, mother dear," full merrily she said.

"_You_ marry; saucy Brier-Rose! The man, he is not found
To marry such a worthless wench, these seven leagues around."
But Brier-Rose, she laughed and she trilled a merry lay:
"Perhaps he'll come, my mother dear, from eight leagues away."

The good-wife with a "humph" and a sigh forsook the battle,
And flung her pots and pails about with much vindictive rattle;
"O Lord, what sin did I commit in youthful days, and wild,
That thou hast punished me in age with such a wayward child?"

Up stole the girl on tiptoe, so that none her step could hear,
And laughing pressed an airy kiss behind the good-wife's ear.
And she, as e'er relenting, sighed: