The Posy Ring: A Book of Verse for Children - Various

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birds

       And leaf-buds by the way,

       We begin to think of flowers

       And life and nuts some day.

       With the gusts of April

       Rich fruit-tree blossoms fall,

       On the hedged-in orchard-green,

       From the southern wall.

       Apple-trees and pear-trees

       Shed petals white or pink,

       Plum-trees and peach-trees;

       While sharp showers sink and sink.

       Little brings the May breeze

       Beside pure scent of flowers,

       While all things wax and nothing wanes

       In lengthening daylight hours.

       Across the hyacinth beds

       The wind lags warm and sweet,

       Across the hawthorn tops,

       Across the blades of wheat.

       In the wind of sunny June

       Thrives the red rose crop,

       Every day fresh blossoms blow

       While the first leaves drop;

       White rose and yellow rose

       And moss rose choice to find,

       And the cottage cabbage-rose

       Not one whit behind.

       On the blast of scorched July

       Drives the pelting hail,

       From thunderous lightning-clouds, that blot

       Blue heaven grown lurid-pale.

       Weedy waves are tossed ashore,

       Sea-things strange to sight

       Gasp upon the barren shore

       And fade away in light.

       In the parching August wind

       Corn-fields bow the head,

       Sheltered in round valley depths,

       On low hills outspread.

       Early leaves drop loitering down

       Weightless on the breeze,

       First fruits of the year's decay

       From the withering trees.

       In brisk wind of September

       The heavy-headed fruits

       Shake upon their bending boughs

       And drop from the shoots;

       Some glow golden in the sun,

       Some show green and streaked,

       Some set forth a purple bloom,

       Some blush rosy-cheeked.

       In strong blast of October

       At the equinox,

       Stirred up in his hollow bed

       Broad ocean rocks;

       Plunge the ships on his bosom,

       Leaps and plunges the foam,

       It's oh! for mothers' sons at sea,

       That they were safe at home.

       In slack wind of November

       The fog forms and shifts;

       All the world comes out again

       When the fog lifts.

       Loosened from their sapless twigs

       Leaves drop with every gust;

       Drifting, rustling, out of sight

       In the damp or dust.

       Last of all, December,

       The year's sands nearly run,

       Speeds on the shortest day,

       Curtails the sun;

       With its bleak raw wind

       Lays the last leaves low,

       Brings back the nightly frosts,

       Brings back the snow.

      Christina G. Rossetti.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful grass upon your breast, World, you are beautifully drest.

      William Brighty Rands.

       Table of Contents

      The Wonderful World

      Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,

       With the wonderful water round you curled,

       And the wonderful grass upon your breast,

       World, you are beautifully drest.

       The wonderful air is over me,

       And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree—

       It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,

       And talks to itself on the top of the hills.

       You friendly Earth, how far do you go,

       With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow,

       With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles,

       And people upon you for thousands of miles?

       Ah! you are so great, and I am so small,

       I hardly can think of you, World, at all;

       And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,

       My mother kissed me, and said, quite gay, "If the wonderful World is great to you, And great to father and mother, too, You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot! You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!"

      William Brighty Rands.

       A Day

      I'll tell you how the sun rose,

       A ribbon at a time.

       The steeples swam in amethyst,

       The news like squirrels ran.

       The hills untied their bonnets,

       The bobolinks begun.

       Then I said softly to myself,

       "That must have been the sun!"

       … . … . But how he set, I know not. There seemed a purple stile Which little yellow boys and girls Were climbing all the while Till when they

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