Works

He is not John the gardener,
And yet the whole day long
Employs himself most usefully,
The flower-beds among.

He is not Tom the pussy-cat,
And yet the other day,...

Hear me now, my hobby-horse, my steed of prancing paces!
Time is it that you and I won something more than races.
I have got a fine cocked hat, with feathers proudly waving;...

The whispering water rocks the reeds,
And, murmuring softly, laps the weeds;
And nurses there the falsest bloom
That ever wrought a lover's doom.
Forget me not! Forget me not!
Ah! would I could forget!...

If I should wish hereafter that your heart
Should beat with one fair memory of me,
May Time's hard hand our footsteps guide apart,
But lead yours back one spring-time to the Lea.
Nodding Anemones,...

When I go to tea with the little Smiths, there are eight of them there, but there's only one of me,
Which makes it not so easy to have a fancy tea-party as if there were two or three....

Our home used to be in a hut in the dear old Camp, with lots of bands and trumpets and bugles and Dead Marches, and three times a day there was a gun,...

I always was a remarkable child; so old for my age, and such a sensitive nature!--Mamma often says so....

The Spring's bright tints no more are seen,
And Summer's ample robe of green
Is russet-gold and brown;
When flowers fall to every breeze
And, shed reluctant from the trees,
The leaves drop down.
...

Permit me, Reader, to make my bow,
And allow
Me to humbly commend to your tender mercies
The hero of these simple verses.
By domicile, of the British Nation;
By birth and family, a Crustacean....

Oh boy, down there, I can't believe that what they say is true!
We squirrels surely cannot have an enemy in you;
We have so much in common, my dear friend, it seems to me...

Father is building a new house, but I've had one given to me for my own;
Brick red, with a white window, and black where it ought to be glass, and the chimney yellow, like stone....

How many years ago, love,
Since you came courting me?
Through oak-tree wood and o'er the lea,
With rosy cheeks and waistcoat gay,
And mostly not a word to say,--
How many years ago, love,...

By Fedor Flinzer. Freely translated by J.H. Ewing.


I.

Dear children, listen whilst I tell
What to a certain Elf befell,
Who left his house and sallied forth...

A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.


A little Brook, that babbled under grass,
Once saw a Poet pass--
A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes,
Who went his weary way with woeful sighs....

I'm weary waiting here,
The chill east wind is sighing,
The autumn tints are sere,
The summer flowers are dying.
The river's sullen way
Winds on through vacant meadows,
The dying light of day...