A FAIRY TALE

On court, hélas! après la vérité;
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite."

-VOLTAIRE.

URLED in a maze of dolls and bricks,

CUR

I find Miss Mary, ætat six,

Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious, Absorbed in her first fairy book,

From which she scarce can pause to look, Because it's "so delicious!"

"Such marvels, too. A wondrous Boat, In which they cross a magic Moat,

That's smooth as glass to row onA Cat that brings all kinds of things; And see, the Queen has angel wingsThen OGRE comes "-and so on.

What trash it is!

How sad to find

(Dear Moralist!) the childish mind,
So active and so pliant,

Rejecting themes in which you mix
Fond truths with pleasing facts, to fix
On tales of Dwarf and Giant!

In merest prudence men should teach
That cats mellifluous in speech

Are painful contradictions;

That science ranks as monstrous things Two pairs of upper limbs; so wingsE'en angels' wings!-are fictions;

That there's no giant now but Steam; That life, although "an empty dream," Is scarce a "land of Fairy."

"Of course I said all this? Why, no; I did a thing far wiser, though,—

I read the tale with Mary.

How

OW shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;

Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?

What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose 'tis on the cards-

You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!

How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn

Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,—

Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent,
His idle verse to turn;

And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!

Nay, let my words be so discreet,
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.

Let others wish you mere good looks,-
Your sex is always fair;

Or to be writ in Fortune's books,-
She's rich who has to spare:

I wish you but a heart that's kind,
A head that's sound and clear;
(Yet let the heart be not too blind,
The head not too severe !)

A joy of life, a frank delight;
A not-too-large desire;

And if you fail to find a Knight-
At least .. a trusty Squire.

ΜΙ

HOUSEHOLD ART

INE be a cot," for the hours of play,

Of the kind that is built by Miss GREEN-
AWAY;

Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red,
And the birds are gay in the blue o’erhead;
And the dear little figures, in frocks and frills,
Go roaming about at their own sweet wills,
And "play with the pups," and "reprove the
calves,"

And do nought in the world (but Work) by halves,
From "Hunt the Slipper" and "Riddle-me-ree "
To watching the cat in the apple-tree.

O Art of the Household!

Men may prate

Of their ways "intense" and Italianate,—

They may soar on their wings of sense, and float To the au delà and the dim remote,

Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West,

'Tis the Art at the Door that will please the best; To the end of Time 'twill be still the same,

For the Earth first laughed when the children

came!