Children Poems

A Leaf From The Calendar

WHERE wood-violets love to grow,

Thickly lies the winter snow;

Where the streamlet sung and danced,

And the summer sunbeam glanced

Through the meadow, down the dale,

All is hushed, and chill, and pale!

Where the crow-foot's tender green

Earliest in the spring is seen;

Where the checker-berries hide

By the pale arbutus' side;

And the cowslips, tipped with gold,

By the brooklet's edge unfold;

Where the ferret, soft and brown,

Stores his nest with pilfered down;

And the field-mouse in the heather

Sleeps for days and weeks together;

And the squirrel, wise and dumb,

Waits for better days to come,—

Lies the winter, bitter, strong,

Heaped through freezing nights and long;

While the tempest comes and goes,

Sliding swift o'er drifted snows:

Clouds above and gloom below;

Tell me—when will winter go?

When the buds begin to swell;

When the streams leap through the dell;

When the swallows dip and fly,

Wheeling, circling, through the sky;

When the violet bids the rose

Waken from its long repose;

When the gnats in sunshine dance;

When the long, bright hours advance;

When the robin by the door

Sings as ne'er he sang before,—

Then, when heart, and flower, and wing

Leap and laugh—then comes the spring.

Scribner's Magazine