A SONG OF CLOVER
I wonder what the Clover thinks,
Intimate friend of Bobolinks,
Lover of Daisies, slim and white,
Waltzer with Buttercups at night;
Keeper of Inn for traveling Bees,
Serving to them wine dregs and lees
Left by the Royal Humming Birds
Who sip and pay with fine-spun words;
Fellow with all the lowliest,
Peer of the gayest and the best,
Comrade of winds, beloved of sun,
Kissed by the Dewdrops, one by one;
Prophet of Good-Luck mystery
By sign of four which few may see;
Emblem of comfort in the speech
Which poor men's babies early reach;
Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by rills,
Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills,
Sweet in its every living breath,
Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death!
Oh! who knows what the Clover thinks!
No one! unless the Bobolinks.
Saxe Holm.
TITHONUS: A LEGEND OF THE
GRASSHOPPER
Lillian S. Hyde
Every day when Helios drove his wonderful horses and fiery chariot across the sky, Aurora opened the gates of pearl and drew back the dark curtains of the night; for Aurora was the Goddess of the Dawn. She was so beautiful that the whole sky flushed pink with pleasure when she appeared in the east.
On the earth lived a mortal called Tithonus, who loved Aurora so well that he never failed to leave his bed while it was still dark to watch for her coming. Aurora loved Tithonus in return, and one day she flew to the king of the gods, and begged of him that Tithonus might be given a draft of nectar, and so become immortal.
Jupiter granted this request, and Aurora took Tithonus up to Mount Olympus to live in her golden house.
The goddess had forgotten to ask that Tithonus might never grow old. Therefore, the time came when grey hairs could be seen among his golden curls. Aurora was always kind to him and continued to give him beautiful garments, and to feed him on ambrosia. Still, Tithonus grew older and older and, in time, after several hundred years, he was so very old that he could not move at all. Little was left of him but his voice, and even that had grown high and thin. Aurora felt so sorry to see him withering away in this manner that she changed him into a little insect, and sent him down to earth again where men called him the grasshopper.
Very glad to be free and active once more, Tithonus hops about in the fields all day, chirping cheerfully to Aurora.