JAMES HOGG.

 BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES.

    Buttercups and daisies,
      Oh, the pretty flowers,
    Coming ere the spring time,
      To tell of sunny hours. 
    While the tree are leafless,
      While the fields are bare,
    Buttercups and daisies
      Spring up here and there.

    Ere the snowdrop peepeth,
      Ere the crocus bold,
    Ere the early primrose
      Opes its paly gold,
    Somewhere on the sunny bank
      Buttercups are bright;
    Somewhere ’mong the frozen grass
      Peeps the daisy white.

    Little hardy flowers,
      Like to children poor,
    Playing in their sturdy health
      By their mother’s door,
    Purple with the north wind,
      Yet alert and bold;
    Fearing not, and caring not,
      Though they be a-cold!

    What to them is winter! 
      What are stormy showers! 
    Buttercups and daisies
      Are these human flowers! 
    He who gave them hardships
      And a life of care,
    Gave them likewise hardy strength
      And patient hearts to bear.

MARY HOWITT.

 THE RAINBOW.

    Triumphal arch, that fills the sky
      When storms prepare to part,
    I ask not proud Philosophy
      To teach me what thou art.

    Still seem, as to my childhood’s sight,
      A midway station given,
    For happy spirits to alight,
      Betwixt the earth and heaven.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

 OLD IRONSIDES.

“Old Ironsides,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94), is learned readily.  Children are untouched by the commercial spirit which is the reproach of this age.  “Ingratitude is the vice of republics,” and this poem puts to shame the love of money and the spirit of ingratitude that could let a national servant become a wreck.

    Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! 
      Long has it waved on high,
    And many an eye has danced to see
      That banner in the sky;
    Beneath it rung the battle shout,
      And burst the cannon’s roar;—­
    The meteor of the ocean air
      Shall sweep the clouds no more.

    Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
      Where knelt the vanquished foe,
    When winds were hurrying o’er the flood
      And waves were white below. 
    No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
      Or know the conquered knee;
    The harpies of the shore shall pluck
      The eagle of the sea!

    O, better that her shattered hulk
      Should sink beneath the wave;
    Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
      And there should be her grave;
    Nail to the mast her holy flag,
      Set every threadbare sail,
    And give her to the god of storms,
      The lightning and the gale!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.