A CRADLE SONG HUSH, my dear! lie still and slumber; Sleep, my babe! thy food and raiment, How much better thou 'rt attended Soft and easy is thy cradle : Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay, When his birthplace was a stable, And his softest bed was hay. See the kindly shepherds round Him, Telling wonders from the sky! Where they sought Him, there they found Him, With his Virgin Mother by. See the lovely babe a-dressing: Lo, He slumbers in his manger, Where the hornèd oxen fed; May'st thou live to know and fear Him, I could give thee thousand kisses, Isaac Wa THE LAND OF STORY BOOKS AT evening, when the lamp is lit, They sit at home, and talk and sing, Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back. There, in the night, where none can spy, All in my hunter's camp I lie, And play at books that I have read Till it is time to go to bed. These are the hills, these are the woods, These are my starry solitudes, And there the river, by whose brink The roaring lions come to drink. I see the others far away, So, when my nurse comes in for me, At my Robert Louis Stevenson. ALADDIN WHEN I was a beggarly boy, I had fire enough in my brain, Since then I have toiled day and night, Take, Fortune, whatever you choose; THE MERRY LARK THE merry, merry lark was up and singing, Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow yard, And the lark beside the dreary winter sea, And my baby in his cradle in the churchyard Waiteth there until the bells bring me. A SPRING LILT Charles Kingsley. THROUGH the silver mist Of the blossom-spray Trill the orioles: list To their joyous lay! "What in all the world, in all the world," they say, "Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?" "WHY weep ye by the tide, ladie? I'll wed ye to my youngest son, But aye she loot the tears down fa' For Jock of Hazeldean. II "Now let this wilfu' grief be done, His step is first in peaceful ha', His sword in battle keen But aye she loot the tears down fa' For Jock of Hazeldean. III "A chain of gold ye sall not lack, Nor braid to bind your hair ; |