ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
280 
THE DANCE OF THE DAISIES. 
S O my pretty flower-folk, you 
Are in a mighty flutter ; 
All your nurse, the wind, can do, 
Is to scold and mutter. 
“ We intend to have a ball 
(That’s why we are fretting); 
And our neighbor-flowers have all 
Fallen to regretting. 
“ Many a butterfly we send 
Far across the clover. 
(There’ll be wings enough to mend 
When the trouble’s over.) 
“ Many a butterfly comes home 
Torn with thorns and blighted. 
Just to say they cannot come,— 
They whom we’ve invited. 
“Yes, the roses and the rest 
Of the high-born beauties 
Are ‘ engaged,’ of course, and pressed 
With their stately duties. 
“ They ’re at garden-parties seen ; 
They ’re at court presented : 
They look prettier than the Queen ! 
(Strange that’s not resented.) 
St. Nicholas , August, 1889. 
H OW calm, how beautiful comes on 
The stilly hour, whei\,storms are gone; 
When warring winds have died away, 
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray, 
Melt off, and leave the land and sea 
Sleeping in bright tranquillity,— 
Fresh as if Day again were born, 
Again upon the lap of Morn ! 
When the light blossoms, rudely torn 
And scattered at the whirlwind’s will, 
Hang floating in the pure air still, 
Filling it all with precious balm, 
“ Peasant-flowers they call us — we 
Whose high lineage you know — 
We, the ox-eyed children (see !) 
Of Olympian Juno.” 
(Here the daisies all made eyes ! 
And the)' looked most splendid. 
As they thought about the skies, 
Whence they were descended.) 
“ In our saintly island (hush !) 
Never crawls a viper, 
Ho, there. Brown-coat! that’s the thrush: 
He will be the piper. 
“ In this Irish island, oh, 
We will stand together. 
Let the royal roses go ;— 
We don’t care a feather. 
Strike up, thrush, and play as though 
All the stars were dancing. 
So they are 1 And —here we go — 
Isn’t this entrancing?” 
“Swaying, mist-white, to and fro, 
Airily they chatter, 
For a daisy dance, you know, 
Is a pleasant matter. 
Sarah M. B. Piatt. 
In gratitude for this sweet calm ; 
And every drop the thunder-showers 
Have left upon the grass and flowers 
Sparkles, as’t were that lightning-gem 
Whose liquid flame is born of them ! 
When, ’stead of one unchanging breeze^. 
There blow a thousand gentle airs, 
And each a different perfume bears,— 
As if the loveliest plants and trees 
Had vassal breezes of their own 
To watch and wait on them alone. 
And waft no other breath than theirs 1 
Moore’s Lalla Rookh.. 
