'd not mind trying
To find a nice white frill for me, some day when you are flying."
"You silly thing!" the Robin said, "I think you must be crazy;
I'd rather be my honest self, than any made-up daisy.

"You're nicer in your own bright gown; the little children love you.
Be the best buttercup you can, and think no flower above you.
Though swallows leave _me_ out of sight, we'd better keep our places:
Perhaps the world would all go wrong with one too many daisies.
Look bravely up into the sky and be content with knowing
That God wished for a buttercup, just here where you are growing."

--_Sarah Orne Jewett._

OUR FLAG.

There are many flags in many lands,
There are flags of every hue,
But there is no flag in any land
Like our own Red, White and Blue.
I know where the prettiest colors are,
I'm sure, if I only knew
How to get them here, I could make a flag
Of glorious Red, White and Blue.

I would cut a piece from the evening sky
Where the stars were shining through,
And use it just as it was on high
For my stars and field of Blue.
Then I want a part of a fleecy cloud
And some red from a rainbow bright,
And I'd put them together, side by side
For my stripes of Red and White.

Then "Hurrah for the Flag!" our country's flag,
Its stripes and white stars too;
There is no flag in any land
Like our own "Red, White and Blue."

--_Anon._

SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES."

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world.

--_Robert Browning._

LITTLE BROWN HANDS.

They drive home the cows from the pasture,
Up through the long shady lane,
Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields,
That are yellow with ripening grain.
They find, in the thick, waving grasses,
Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows.
They gather the earliest snowdrops,
And the first crimson buds of the rose.

They toss the new hay in the meadow;
They gather the elder-bloom white;
They find where the dusky grapes purple
In the soft-tinted October light.
They know where the apples hang ripest,
And are sweet