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Her best blue ribbons fluttered gay, and she
had some calling-cards of her own—
Long, long ago, the people cried, "There
rides the sweet little Arabella,
She goes for to make a wedding-call, to-day,
on the Prince and Cinderella!"
WHO was Katy, who was she,
That you prate of her so long?
Was she just a little lassie
Full of smiles and wiles and song?
Did she spill the cups o' dew
Filled for helpless, thirsty posies?
Did she tie a butterfly
Just beyond the reach o' roses?
Slandered she some sweet dumb thing?
Called a tulip dull and plain,
Said the clover had no fragrance,
And the lily had a stain?
Did she mock the pansies' faces,
Or a grandpa-longlegs flout?
Did she chase the frightened fireflies
Till their pretty lamps went out?
Well, whatever 'twas, O Katy!
We believe no harm of you;
And we'll join your stanch defenders,
Singing "Katy-didn't," too.
THERE is ice on the hill, hurrah, hurrah!
We can slide quite down to the pas-
ture-bar,
Where the cows at night, in the summer
weather,
Would stand a-waiting and lowing together.
"Tie your tippet closer, John,"
That was what their mother said;
"All of you put mittens on—
The broom will answer for a sled!"
They had never a sled, but dragged in its room,
Just as gayly, behind them, the worn kitchen-
broom;
John, Sammy, and Tom, and their sweet lit-
tle sister,
With her cheeks cherry-red, where the wind
had kissed her.
"You can watch, sis, that's enough,"
That was what her brother's said;
"Keep your hands warm in your muff—
Girls can't slide without a sled! "
"Oh! where in the world is there aught so nice
As to slide down the pasture-hill on the ice?
Quite down to the bar, sis, see, we are going,
Where the cows each night in summer stood lowing.
"If I were a boy, like you—"
This was what their sister said,
Watching as they downward flew—
"I would make a girl a sled!"
AT the foot of the Golden Dragon Hill,
Ages ago, in a snug little house
With a roof of dark-brown, velvety thatch,
There lived an old woodman and his spouse.
One morning his bill-hook the old man took:
"To the mountain, to cut me a fagot, I'll
hie,
While you, O Koyo, the linen can wash
In the river which rushes and gurgles by."
Oh! the merry old man to the mountain hied,
Past young rice-fields in the morning sun,
Toward the dark fir-trees on the mountain side,
Standing forth in its silence, every one.
From wild camellias and white plum-trees,
In his twinkling old eyes the spider-webs
swung;
And he merrily brushed by the green bam-
boos,
With his bill-hook over his shoulder hung.
And a uguisu sang in a tall cherry-tree
As the smiling old wife to the river-side
went:
"Oh, red is the sun!" she cheerily sang,
As she patiently over her washing bent.
"Oh, red is the sun! and the rice-fields green—
Now what is that in the river I see?
It's the rosiest peach in the whole of Japan;
And it's coming a-floating, a-floating to me.
"Now, here is a feast for my darling old man,
Oh, the great Shogun not a finer can get!
Some stewed lily-bulbs, and this beautiful peach,
When he comes home from work, before
him I'll set."
Soon down from the mountain the old man
came,
And fast on his back his fagot was bound.
"Oh! hasten you, husband," his loving wife
cried,
And taste this beautiful peach that I found."
But just as he took it the peach split in
twain,
And a fat little baby with raven-black hair
Was cradled right in the heart of the peach,
And lay a-twinkling and blinking there.
"Oh! you brave little boy, you shall be our
own son;
And Momotaro shall have for a name,
Or Little Peachling, since out of a peach,
You dear little fellow, this morning you
came."
Oh! the rice-fields blossomed for twenty years,
While the gurgling old river amongst them
ran;
Oh! for twenty years grew the slim bamboo,
And Little Peachling was grown to a man.
"Some millet-dumplings pray make for me,"
To his good foster-mother he said one
day,
"And off to the ogres' castle I'll go,
And the whole of their treasure will bring
away.
"As thick in the ogres' treasure-vaults
The jewels are lying as sea-shore sands;
With blue snow-gates on the mountain-top,
The ogres' castle all proudly stands—
"With blue snow-gates that are stronger than
steel;
But I will enter, and bring to you
The wealth from the ogres' treasure-vaults,
Hung over with pearls, like flowers with
dew."
"I have made you the dumplings," his good
mother said,
"But I fear lest the ogres should do you
a harm."
But the little Peachling danced gayly away,
With the millet-dumplings under his arm.
A dog leapt out of a cluster of pines:
"And what have you there, Little Peachling,
pray?"
"The best millet-dumplings in all Japan,
And I'm to the ogres' castle away."
"For one of your dumplings with you I'll go,
And the ogres' castle will help subdue."
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"Well, you can bark at the castle-gate;
So here is a dumpling, friend dog, for you."
An ape swung down from a roadside tree:
"Kia, kia, what have you, I say?"
"The best millet-dumplings in all Japan,
And I'm to the ogres' castle away."
"One of your dumplings pray give to me,
And the ogres' castle I'll help subdue."
"Well, you can climb o'er the castle-gate;
So here is a dumpling, friend ape, for you."
"Ken, ken=," cried a pheasant, "and what have
you there,
Little Peachling, tucked in your girdle, I
pray?"
"The best millet-dumplings in all Japan,
And I'm to the ogres' castle away."
"For one of your dumplings with you I'll go,
And the ogres' castle will help subdue,"
"Well, you can fly o'er the castle-gate;
So here is a dumpling, friend pheasant, for
you.
Oh, the castle stood high on the mountain-
top,
And over its turrets a hurricane blew;
But up to its terrible blue snow-gates
Little Peachling marched with his retinue.
Then the ogres swarmed out on the castle-
towers,
The drums beat loud, and the trumpets
brayed,
And magical arrows came rustling around—
But our brave little rônin was not afraid.
For his pheasant flew over the castle-wall,
And his ape undid the castle-gate;
And brave Little Peachling, his dog at heel,
Into the castle then marched in state.
His little dog snapped at the ogres' heels;
His pheasant picked at their round green
eyes;
And his ape tweaked away at the ogres' locks,
As only an ape can do when he tries.
And the little rônin, around him he laid,
With his muramasa so thick and fast,
That the king of the ogres was prisoner
made;
And the ogres' castle was taken at last.
Oh, measures of pearls and wedges of gold!
Oh, the jars of musk and the coral-bars,
Amber and emeralds, tortoise-shells,
And diamonds shining like strings of stars!
Gold-brocade coats, and wonderful gems
That regulated the green sea-tide!
It's always the loveliest things in the world
Which the treasure-castles of ogres hide.
With the treasures, the dog, the pheasant and
ape,
Little Peachling home to his parents ran;
And the old woodman and his loving wife
Were the happiest couple in all Japan.
OTHEY made her a swing on a gossamer-
tree, on the lowest bough of a gossamer-tree;
And she swung so far, I have heard, she could
see
The next year's rose and honey-bee, and the
gifts on the next year's Christmas-tree—
But I fear 'tis a story, O dear me!
YOU think that I can't tell a story—
Just wait—no! 'tisn't 'bout Jack
Mory;
This morning, it was early quite,
I saw a little fairy knight,
With silver boots and silver shield,
A-tramping through the clover-field.
He held a spear that looked like grass,
But 'twas a truly spear of glass;
A silver bugle at his lips,
He played with tiny finger-tips;
He held a flag o' grass-green silk;
A branch of lilies white as milk;
He held—"How many hands had he?"
You're cruel to make fun of me!
No! I won't tell another bit;
You've lost the sweetest part of it!
SING a song of a little lass (red blow the
roses, O ),
About a lovely little lass, who was so like a
rose, you know,
(Red blow the roses, O ), so very like when
placed together,
They only told her from a rose because she
bloomed in winter weather.
SHE lifted her finger with gesture slow:
"'Tis true, for certain and sure, I know,
And I think when I say so you ought to be-
lieve—
They kneel in their stalls on Christmas Eve.
"The red one, the white one, the speckled
and brown,
When the clock strikes twelve, will all kneel
down;
And it happens so every Christmas Eve,
—Well, I'll tell you this, if youwon'tbelieve:
"Once, ages and ages ago it was,
I thought I would see for myself, because
I doubted a little, just like you,
Whether or no the story was true;
"And so one Christmas Eve I staid
Awake till twelve—Oh, I was afraid!
The wind was a-blowing, and no moon shone,
But I went to the stable myself, alone.
"And when I had slid the big doors back
I couldn't go in, it was so black;
But—solemn and true—I do declare
I heard the cows when they knelt down!There!"
THE Princess Rosalinda's lamb-
Silken is his fleece, they say,
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And he feeds on pinks alway.
Round his neck's a golden band,
"Rosalinda" 's on it writ,
And a padlock fastens it.
Oh! of pinks he is so sweet,
And he has such dainty feet—
The Princess Rosalinda's lamb!
If you find him, you who read,
And him to his mistress lead,
Rich reward she offers you:
Lovely china mug of blue,
Coral beads, a turquoise ring,
Silver bangles—anything
That you choose to have in mind;
Ah, you're lucky if you find
Princess Rosalinda's lamb!
AN exquisite little maiden
With a head like a golden flower,
She soberly stood at the window
In the still, white twilight hour.
"Of what are you thinking, sweetheart?
She was such a little child,
She could not answer the question;
She only dimpled and smiled.
But I wondered, as she frolicked,
Her mystic revery o'er,
Was she a rose-shade less a child
Than she had been before?
Was she pausing, as a rose-bud
Seems pausing while it grows?
Had I caught the blooming minute
Of a little human rose?
O, A little boy sailed in a sugar-bowl,
with silver spoons for oars,
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And his hold was full of sugar, the French-
man's tea to sweeten;
But when he safely moored his craft beside
those foreign shores—
Alas, that silly little boy, his cargo he had
eaten!
THE mackerel-man drives down the street,
With mackerel to sell,
A-calling out with lusty shout:
"Ha-il, Mack-e-rel!"
When I'm a man I mean to drive
A wagon full of posies,
And sing so sweet to all I meet:
"Hail, Hyacinths and Roses!"
THE hawthorn is dead, the rose-leaves
have fled
On the north wind over the sea:
Now the petals will fall that are rarest of all,
Sweetheart, from the Snowflake Tree.
The Tree, it doth stand in that marvellous
land
Whose shore like a sapphire gleams,
Where a crown hangs high in the northern
sky,
Forth raying its golden beams.
It tosses its boughs with their crystalling
blows;
They crackle and tinkle for glee
When the north wind shrieks round the
awful peaks,
On the shores of the polar sea.
And never a bird its blossoms has stirred,
Or built on its branches a nest;
For the perfume which floats from the blos-
soms' throats
Would freeze the song in its breast.
And my own little bird, were her goldilocks
stirred
By the wind thro' its branches which blows,
With her songs silenced all, forever would fall
Asleep on the silver snows.
But our hearth burns bright, little sweetheart,
to-night,
And we're far from the Snowflake Tree;
Thou canst nestle in bed thy little gold head,
And thy songs shall awaken with thee.
SHE sat on her little wooden stool,
With a wistful, thoughtful face,
Her blue eyes staring straight ahead
Into the chimney-place
Where the oaken logs that winter night sent
up a merry blaze.
"Now, what is the thought, Maid Dorothy,
You think so long, I pray?"
"Oh, mother! last night I dreamed a dream
About that Christmas Day
Which they have in the green old England
over the sea, you say.
And I thought I had hung up a stocking
Right over the chimney there;
And it was not one of the coarse blue socks
I knit myself to wear—
But fine and soft; and, on the sides, some silk-
en 'broidery fair.
"And out of the stocking I pulled a book—
And it was a sin, you'll say—
But my old 'New England Primer'
I thought I would throw away;
For it was not a book like this one, but had
covers and pictures gay.
"And I pulled out a doll with real brown hair
In satins and laces drest—
Oh! she truly cried, and she closed her eyes
When I laid her down to rest.
But I made up my mind I would always love
my old poppet the best.
"Oh! I'm sure that the Governor's lady
Has never one ribbon so fine
As some in that stocking; of blue and gold
And crimson like elder-wine.
I could have tied up my hair with them if
they had been really mine.
"But "—soberly said Maid Dorothy,
A hundred years ago,
"It was a dream—and dreams of course
By opposites always go;
And such fine things will never be in this vain
world, I know."
HOW keepeth my lady the weeds from
her posies,
All in the gay summer-time!
Why is it the rose-chafer eats not her roses
From the song of the lark till the four-o'clock
closes?
Five fierce lily-tigers in spotted cuirasses
She posteth at each of her green garden-
passes,
And they frighten away the chafers and
grasses,
All in the gay summer-time.
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