3.  Oh, the smell of sprouting grass! 
   In a blur the violets pass. 
   Whispering from the wildwood come
   Mayflower’s breath and insect’s hum. 
   Roses carpeting the ground;
   Thrushes, orioles, warbling sound:—­
   Swing me low, and swing me high,
   To the warm clouds of July.

4.  Slower now, for at my side
   White pond lilies open wide. 
   Underneath the pine’s tall spire
   Cardinal blossoms burn like fire. 
   They are gone; the golden-rod
   Flashes from the dark green sod. 
   Crickets in the grass I hear;
   Asters light the fading year.

5.  Slower still!  October weaves
   Rainbows of the forest leaves. 
   Gentians fringed, like eyes of blue,
   Glimmer out of sleety dew. 
   Meadow green I sadly miss: 
   Winds through withered sedges hiss. 
   Oh, ’t is snowing, swing me fast,
   While December shivers past!

6.  Frosty-bearded Father Time,
   Stop your footfall on the rime! 
   Hard you push, your hand is rough;
   You have swung me long enough. 
   “Nay, no stopping,” say you?  Well,
   Some of your best stories tell,
   While you swing me—­gently, do!—­
   From the Old Year to the New.

Definitions.—­2.  Twit’ter-ing, making a succession of small, chirping noises.  Glimpse, a short, hurried view. 3.  Blur, a dim, confused appearance. 6.  Rime, whitefrost, hoarfrost.

XXVII.  HARRY AND HIS DOG. (79)

1.  “Beg, Frisk, beg,” said little Harry, as he sat on an inverted basket, at his grandmother’s door, eating, with great satisfaction, a porringer of bread and milk.  His little sister Annie, who had already dispatched her breakfast, sat on the ground opposite to him, now twisting her flowers into garlands, and now throwing them away.

2.  “Beg, Frisk, beg!” repeated Harry, holding a bit of bread just out of the dog’s reach; and the obedient Frisk squatted himself on his hind legs, and held up his fore paws, waiting for master Harry to give him the tempting morsel.

3.  The little boy and the little dog were great friends.  Frisk loved him dearly, much better than he did anyone else; perhaps, because he recollected that Harry was his earliest and firmest friend during a time of great trouble.

4.  Poor Frisk had come as a stray dog to Milton, the place where Harry lived.  If he could have told his own story, it would probably have been a very pitiful one, of kicks and cuffs, of hunger and foul weather.

5.  Certain it is, he made his appearance at the very door where Harry was now sitting, in miserable plight, wet, dirty, and half starved; and that there he met Harry, who took a fancy to him, and Harry’s grandmother, who drove him off with a broom.

6.  Harry, at length, obtained permission for the little dog to remain as a sort of outdoor pensioner, and fed him with stray bones and cold potatoes, and such things as he could get for him.  He also provided him with a little basket to sleep in, the very same which, turned up, afterward served Harry for a seat.