O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing
And shining so round and low;

You were bright! ah, bright! but your light is failing

You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven,

That God has hidden your face?

I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven,
And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow,
You've powdered your legs with gold!
O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow,
Give me your money to hold!

O columbine, open your folded wrapper,
Where two twin turtledoves dwell!
O cuckoopint, toll me the purple clapper
That hangs in your clear green bell!

And show me your nest with the young ones in it;

I will not steal them away;

I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet

I am seven times one to-day.

SH

LOCKS*

By EUGENE FIELD

HUFFLE-SHOON and Amber-Locks
Sit together, building blocks;

Shuffle-Shoon is old and gray,

Amber-Locks a little child.

*From "Love-Songs of Childhood"; Copyright, 1894, by Eugene Field; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

But together at their play

Age and Youth are reconciled,
And with sympathetic glee
Build their castles fair to see.

"When I grow to be a man,'
(So the wee one's prattle ran),
"I shall build a castle so-

With a gateway broad and grand;
Here a pretty vine shall grow,

There a soldier guard shall stand; And the tower shall be so high, Folks will wonder, by and by!"

Shuffle-Shoon quoth: "Yes, I know;
Thus I builded long ago!

Here a gate and there a wall,
Here a window, there a door;
Here a steeple wondrous tall

Riseth ever more and more!
But the years have leveled low
What I builded long ago!"

So they gossip at their play,
Heedless of the fleeting day;
One speaks of the Long Ago
Where his dead hopes buried lie;
One with chubby cheeks aglow
Prattleth of the By-and-By;

Side by side, they build their blocks—
Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks.

AF

AFTERWHILE*

By JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

FTERWHILE we have in view The old home to journey to; Where the Mother is, and where Her sweet welcome waits us there. How we'll click the latch that locks In the pinks and hollyhocks, And leap up the path once more Where she waits us at the door; How we'll greet the dear old smile And the warm tears afterwhile.

*From the poem to Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley. Used by special permission of the publishers-The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

WINDY NIGHTS

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

HENEVER the moon and stars are set,

WHENEVER

Whenever the wind is high,

All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.

Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

Which Treats of the Mirror and Fragments

OOK you, now we're going to begin. When we are at the end of the story we shall know more than we do now, for he was a bad goblin. He was one of the very worst, for he was a demon. One day he was in very good spirits,

for he had made a mirror which had this peculiarity, that everything good and beautiful that was reflected in it shrank together into almost nothing, but that whatever was worthless and looked ugly became prominent and looked worse