left without delay;

[Illustration]

While some who strove their friends to aid,
Upon the floor themselves were laid,
To spread confusion there awhile,
As large and larger grew the pile.

[Illustration]

Some rose with fingers out of joint,
Or black and blue at every point;

[Illustration]

And few but felt some portion sore,
From introductions to the floor.
But such mishaps were lost to sight,
Amid the common wild delight,--
For little plaint do Brownies make
O'er bump or bruise or even break.

But stars at length began to wane,
And dawn came creeping through the pane;
And much against the will of all,
The rogues were forced to leave the hall.

THE BROWNIES AT THE SEASIDE.

[Illustration]

WITHIN a forest dark and wide,
Some distance from the ocean side,
A band of Brownies played around
On mossy stone or grassy mound,
Or, climbing through the branching tree,
Performed their antics wild and free.

[Illustration]

When one, arising in his place
With sparkling eyes and beaming face
Soon won attention from the rest,
And thus the listening throng addressed:
"For years and years, through heat and cold,
Our home has been this forest old;
The saplings which we used to bend
Now like a schooner's masts ascend.

[Illustration]

Yet here we live, content to ride
A springing bough with childish pride,
Content to bathe in brook or bog
Along with lizard, leech, and frog;
We're far behind the age you'll find
If once you note the human kind.

[Illustration]

The modern youths no longer lave
Their limbs beneath the muddy wave
Of meadow pool or village pond,
But seek the ocean far beyond.
If pleasure in the sea is found
Not offered by the streams around,
The Brownie band at once should haste

[Illustration]

These unfamiliar joys to taste;
No torch nor lantern's ray we'll need
To show our path o'er dewy mead,
The ponds and pitfalls in the swale,
The open ditch, the slivered rail,
The poison vine and thistle hi