Works

Crowd about me, little children -
Come and cluster 'round my knee
While I tell a little story
That happened once with me.

My father he had gone away
A-sailing on the foam,...

The Child-World - long and long since lost to view -
A Fairy Paradise! -
How always fair it was and fresh and new -
How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes
With treasures of surprise!
...

1
The Hired Man Talks

There's old man Willards; an' his wife;
An' Marg'et - S'repty's sister; an'
There's me - an' I'm the hired man;
An' Tomps McClure, you better yer life!
...

How tired I am! I sink down all alone
Here by the wayside of the Present. Lo,
Even as a child I hide my face and moan -
A little girl that may no farther go;
The path above me only seems to grow...

I woo'd a woman once,
But she was sharper than an eastern wind.
- TENNYSON.

"What may I do to make you glad,
To make you glad and free,
Till your light smiles glance...

O here's a little rhyme for the Spring- or Summer-time -
An a-ho-winky-tooden-an-a-ho! -
Just a little bit o' tune you can twitter, May or June,
An a-ho-winky-tooden-an-a-ho!...

Uncle he says 'at 'way down in the sea
Ever'thing's ist like it used to be: -
He says they's mermaids, an' mermens, too,
An' little merchildern, like me an' you -
Little merboys, with tops an' balls,...

Now, Tudens, you sit on this knee - and 'scuse
It having no side-saddle on; - and, Jeems,
You sit on this - and don't you wobble so
And chug my old shins with your coppertoes; -...

Our dog Fred
Et the bread.



Our dog Dash
Et the hash.



Our dog Pete
Et the meat.



Our dog Davy
Et the gravy.


...

Miss Medairy Dory-Ann
Cast her line and caught a man,


But when he looked so pleased, alack!
She unhooked and plunked him back. -
"I never like to catch what I can,"
Said Miss Medairy Dory-Ann.

[Voice from behind high board-fence.]



"Where's the crowd that dares to go
Where I dare to lead? - you know!"



"Well, here's one!"
Shouts Ezry Dunn.


...

A wee little worm in a hickory-nut
Sang, happy as he could be, -



"O I live in the heart of the whole round world,
And it all belongs to me!"

A daring prince, of the realm Rangg Dhune,
Once went up in a big balloon

That caught and stuck on the horns of the moon,
And he hung up there till next day noon -...

Low hidden in among the forest trees
An artist's tilted easel, ankle-deep
In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat -...

Not very many years ago the writer was for some months stationed at
South Bend, a thriving little city of northern Indiana, its main
population on the one side of the St. Joseph river, but quite a...

Welladay!
Here I lay
You at rest - all worn away,
O my pencil, to the tip
Of our old companionship!

Memory
Sighs to see
What you are, and used to be,
Looking backward to the time...

In its color, shade and shine,
'T was a summer warm as wine,
With an effervescent flavoring of flowered bough and vine,
And a fragrance and a taste
Of ripe roses gone to waste,...

Dexery-tethery! down in the dike,
Under the ooze and the slime,
Nestles the wraith of a reticent Gryke,
Blubbering bubbles of rhyme:
Though the reeds touch him and tickle his teeth -...

By her white bed I muse a little space:
She fell asleep - not very long ago, -
And yet the grass was here and not the snow -
The leaf, the bud, the blossom, and - her face! -...

Little Boy! Halloo! - halloo!
Can't you hear me calling you? -
Little Boy that used to be,
Come in here and play with me.