Buttercups and Daisies Shall birds and bees and ants be wise, While I my moments waste? Oh, let me with the morning rise, And to my duties haste. Why should I sleep till beams of morn 117 Jane Taylor [1783-1824] BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES BUTTERCUPS and daisies, Oh, the pretty flowers; Coming ere the spring time, To tell of sunny hours, While the trees are leafless, While the fields are bare, Buttercups and daisies Spring up here and there. Ere the snow-drop peepeth, Ere the early primrose Opes its paly gold, Somewhere on the sunny bank Buttercups are bright; Somewhere midst the frozen grass Peeps the daisy white. Little hardy flowers, Like to children poor, Playing in their sturdy health By their mother's door. Purple with the north-wind, Fearing not, and caring not, Though they be a-cold! Through the warm, sunny months of gay summer and spring, Began to complain, when he found that at home His cupboard was empty and winter was come. Not a crumb to be found On the snow-covered ground; Not a flower could he see, Not a leaf on a tree: "Oh, what will become," says the cricket, "of me?" At last by starvation and famine made bold, All dripping with wet and all trembling with cold, Away he set off to a miserly ant, To see if, to keep him alive, he would grant [ Him shelter from rain: A mouthful of grain He wished only to borrow, He'd repay it to-morrow: If not, he must die of starvation and sorrow. Says the ant to the cricket, "I'm your servant and friend, But we ants never borrow, we ants never lend; But tell me, dear sir, did you lay nothing by When the weather was warm?" Said the cricket, "Not I. My heart was so light That I sang day and night, "You sang, sir, you say? Go then," said the ant, “and dance winter away." Deeds of Kindness Thus ending, he hastily lifted the wicket And out of the door turned the poor little cricket. 119 If you live without work, you must live without food. AFTER WINGS THIS was your butterfly, you see,— Passed them in rich disdain.— Unknown O child, when things have learned to wear To keep them always high and fair: Which even a butterfly must bear To be a worm again! Sarah M. B. Piatt [1836 DEEDS OF KINDNESS SUPPOSE the little Cowslip Should hang its golden cup Would miss its fragrant smell, How many a little child would grieve Suppose the glistening Dewdrop Upon the grass should say, The blade on which it rested, Before the day was done, Suppose the little Breezes, Upon a summer's day, Should think themselves too small to cool The traveller on his way: Who would not miss the smallest And softest ones that blow, And think they made a great mistake How many deed of kindness A little child can do, Although it has but little strength And little wisdom too! It wants a loving spirit Much more than strength, to prove How many things a child may do For others by its love. Epes Sargent [1813-1880] THE LION AND THE MOUSE A LION with the heat oppressed, And travelled over him, and round him, Who straightway woke, with wrath immense, "You rascal, what are you about?" The Boy and the Wolf But she (the mouse) with tearful eye, 'Twas nearly twelve months after this, With dreadful rage, he stamped and tore, Then what the lion's utmost strength Few are so small or weak, I guess, 121 Jeffreys Taylor [1792-1853] THE BOY AND THE WOLF A LITTLE BOY was set to keep A little flock of goats or sheep; He thought the task too solitary, And took a strange perverse vagary: To call the people out of fun, To see them leave their work and run, He cried and screamed with all his might, "Wolf! wolf!" in a pretended fright. Some people, working at a distance, They searched the fields and bushes round, |