CAN YOU
Can you make a rose or a lily just one?
Or catch a beam of the golden sun?
Can you count the rain-drops as they fall?
Or the leaves that flutter from tree-tops tall?
Can you run like the brook and never tire?
Can you climb like the vine beyond the spire?
Can you fly like a bird, or weave a nest,
Or make one feather on robin's breast?
Can you build a cell like the bee, or spin
Like the spider, a web so fine and thin?
Can you lift a shadow from off the ground?
Can you see the wind, or measure a sound!
Can you blow a bubble that will not burst?
Can you talk with echo and not speak first?
Oh, my dear little boy, you are clever and strong,
And you are so busy the whole day long,
Trying as hard as a little boy can
To do big things like a "grown-up" man!
Look at me, darling, I tell you true,
There are some things you never can do.
St. Nicholas.
THE FAMILY.
The family is a little book,
The children are the leaves;
The parents are the covers that
Protective beauty gives.
At first the pages of the book
Are blank and purely fair;
But time soon writeth memories
And painteth pictures there.
Love is the little golden clasp
That bindeth up the trust;
O break it not, lest all the leaves
Shall scatter and be lost.