ll.
'Twas, "Papa, where does the whiteness go?"
And, "Where's all the beauty gone?
What makes it be wet spots 'stead o' snow,
When it gets in where it's warm?"

I smiled that day, but seldom now
Does the thought of smiling come;
A phantom shape, a bow of crape,
And my sweet little child went home.
O Father, "Where does the whiteness go?
And whither's the beauty flown?
Why are there 'wet spots 'stead o' snow'
On my cheek as I face the storm?"

Again the wild wind hurls the snow
Against the frosted pane
And a few flakes dash through the rattling sash,
While I hear those words again.
The flakes scurry off to a spot on the hill
Where a little mound is seen,
And they cover it softly and tenderly
As the grass with its cloak of green.

FOOTNOTE:

[19] By permission of the author.

TO A WILD FLOWER[20]

MAURICE THOMPSON

In the green solitudes
Of the deep, shady woods
Thy lot is kindly cast, and life to thee
Is like a gust of rarest minstrelsy.

The winds of May and June
Hum many a tender tune,
Blowing above thy leafy hiding-place,
Kissing, all thrilled with joy, thy modest face.

About thee float and glow
Rare insects, hovering low,
And round thee glance thin streams of delicate grass,
Plashing their odors on thee as they pass.

The sheen of brilliant wings
Songs of shy, flitting things,
The low, mysterious melodies that thrill
Through every summer wood, thy sweet life fill.

Oh bloom! all joy is thine,
All loves around thee shine,
The thousand hearts of nature throb for thee,
Her thousand voices praise thee tenderly.

Oh bloom of purest glory,
Flower of love's gentlest story,
Forever keep thy petals fresh and fair,
Forever send thy sweetness down the air!

I'll put thee in my song,
With all thy joys along,
At which some sunny hearts may sunnier grow,
And frozen ones may gently slip their snow.

FOOTNOTE:

[20] Used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers of this author's works.

THE FATE OF ZOROASTER

F. MARION CRAWFORD

Zoroaster a young Persian and Nehushta a Hebrew maiden were
betrothed lovers; an unfort