THE LITTLE FLOWER-GARDEN.
In yonder village burying-place,
With briers and weeds o'ergrown,
I saw a child, with beauteous face,
Sit musing all alone.
Without a shoe, without a hat,
Beside a new-raised mound,
The little Willie pensive sat,
As if to guard the ground.
I asked him why he lingered thus
Within that gray old wall.
"Because," said he, "it is to us
The dearest place of all."
"And what," said I, "to one so young,
Can make the place so dear?"
"Our mother," said the lisping tongue,—
They laid our mother here.
And since they made it mother's lot,
We like to call it ours:
We took it for our garden-spot,
And planted it with flowers.
We know 'twas here that she was laid;
And yet they tell us, too,
She's now a happy angel made,
To live where angels do.
Then she will watch us from above,
And smile on us, to know
That here her little children love
To make sweet flowerets grow.
My sister Anna's gone to take
Her supper, and will come,
With quickest haste that she can make,
To let me run for some.
We do not leave the spot alone,
For fear the birds will spy
The places where the seeds were sown,
And catch them up and fly.
We love to have them come and feed,
And sing and flit about;
Yet not where we have dropped the seed,
To find and pick it out.
But now the great round yellow sun
Is going down the west;
And soon the birds will every one
Be home, and in the nest.
Then we to rest shall go home too;
And while we're fast asleep,
Amid the darkness and the dew,
Perhaps the sprouts will peep.
And, when our plants have grown so high
That leaves are on the stem,
We'll call the pretty birdies nigh,
And scatter crumbs for them.
For mother loved their songs to hear,
To watch them on the wing:
She'll love to know they still come near
Her little ones, and sing."
"Heaven shield thee, precious child!" methought,
"And sister Annie too!
And may your future days be fraught
With blessings ever new!"
Hanna F. Gould
This is a true story. A little girl received it in a letter from a very dear friend before it was printed.