"LITTLE BLUE-RIBBONS" "LITTLE Blue-Ribbons!" We call her that From the ribbons she wears in her favourite hat; For may not a person be only five, And yet have the neatest of taste alive?— "Little Blue-Ribbons" has eyes of blue, And an arch little mouth, when the teeth peep through; And her primitive look is wise and grave, With a sense of the weight of the word "behave "; She's a staid little woman! And so as well For the object thereon,-be it understood,- It is not in the least like a robin, though, But "little Blue-Ribbons" declares it so. "Little Blue-Ribbons believes, I think, To the spot where the suns of yesterday set; Dear "little Blue-Ribbons"! She tells us all In her "darling home" till she gets "quite gray"; LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE "the music of the moon Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale." FIVE -AYLMER'S FIELD. IVE geese, a landscape damp and wild,— Beneath a battered gingham; Such things, to say the least, require And yet Why should they? Souls of mark Who shall decide where seed is sown? (And what must grow will still increase, Maybe this homely face may hide May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)- Or say the gingham shadows o'er Who shall affirm it ?—who deny ?— So then-Caps off, my Masters all; Your all-too-hasty strictures; In most unhopeful pictures. A FAIRY TALE "On court, hélas! après la vérité; Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite.” -VOLTAIRE. CURLED in a maze of dolls and bricks, 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, Rejecting themes in which you mix |