n,
Their sweet home and mine."

Art thou not a sunbeam,
Child whose life is glad
With an inner radiance
Sunshine never had?
Oh, as God has blessed thee,
Scatter rays divine!
For there is no sunbeam
But must die, or shine.

--_Lucy Larcom._

MEADOW TALK.

A bumble bee, yellow as gold
Sat perched on a red-clover top,
When a grasshopper, wiry and old,
Came along with a skip and a hop.
"Good morrow" cried he, "Mr. Bumble Bee,
You seem to have come to stop."

"We people that work," said the bee with a jerk,
"Find a benefit sometimes in stopping,
Only insects like you, who have nothing to do
Can keep perpetually hopping."
The grasshopper paused on his way
And thoughtfully hunched up his knees:
"Why trouble this sunshiny day,"
Quoth he, "with reflections like these?
I follow the trade for which I was made
We all can't be wise bumble-bees;
There's a time to be sad and a time to be glad,
A time for both working and stopping,
For men to make money, for you to make honey,
And for me to keep constantly hopping."

--_Caroline Leslie._

THE OLD LOVE.

I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled:
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day,
And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
And I never could find where she lay.

I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away;
And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet for old time's sake, she is still to me
The prettiest doll in the world.

--_Charles Kingsley._

BED IN SUMMER.

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?