"FLUTTER, FLUTTER!"
Flutter, flutter, with never a stop,
All the leaves have begun to drop;
While the wind, with a skip and a hop,
Goes about gathering in his crop.
Flutter, flutter, on bustling wings,
All the plump little feathered things:
Thrush and bobolink, finch and jay,
Follow the sun on his holiday.
Flutter, flutter, the snowflakes all
Jostle each other in their fall,
Crowd and push into last year's nest,
And hide the seeds from robin-redbreast.
Flutter, flutter, the hours go by;
Nobody sees them as they fly;
Nobody hears their fairy tread,
Nor the rustle of their wings instead.
MARY N. PRESCOTT.
DRAWING-LESSON.
VOL. XXIX.—NO. 1.
"Are you waking?" shout the breezes
To the tree-tops waving high,
"Don't you hear the happy tidings
Whispered to the earth and sky?
Have you caught them in your dreaming,
Brook and rill in snowy dells?
Do you know the joy we bring you
In the merry Christmas bells?
Ding, dong! ding, dong, Christmas bells!
"Are you waking, flowers that slumber
In the deep and frosty ground?
Do you hear what we are breathing
To the listening world around?
For we bear the sweetest story
That the glad year ever tells:
How He loved the little children,—
He who brought the Christmas bells!
Ding, dong! ding, dong, Christmas bells!"
GEORGE COOPER.