Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye,
Outward sunshine, inward joy:
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

Oh, for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned in schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild-flower's time and place.
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters
shine;

Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy,
Blessings on the barefoot boy!

Oh, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the
night,

Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still as my horizon grew

Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

Oh, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch; pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy.

Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

STILL sits the school-house by the road,

A ragged beggar sunning; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen,

Deep scarred by raps official; The warpiry floor, the battered seats, The jack knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled:
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were min-
gled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

The west-winds blow, and, singing low,

I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's
hand

Rebukes my painful care.

I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;

The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.

The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn;

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given:

Enough that blessings undeserved Have marked my erring track; That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,

Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the

sun

That more and more a Providence

Of love is understood,

one.

-

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight; -

That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory's sunset air, Like mountain-ranges overpast, In purple distance fair;—

That all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west-winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE,

corn,

Up from the meadows rich with
Clear in the cool September morn,
The cluster'd spires of Frederick
stand,

Green-walled by the hills of Maryland;

Round about them orchards sweep, Apple and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord,

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall,

When Lee marched over the mountain wall,

Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

ten;