A Big Red Apple.
There is a great big apple in the top of the tree;
Oh, do come down and be sweet to me;
You have hung there so long, and have tempted my taste
And hope that the birds won’t come near you to waste.
When you were aglow with your blossom so white,
I could see from my window in the dead of the night;
The rose blush began, when snow lay around,
And was mixed with your petals all over the ground.
Your tree is so full, but none seems more fair,
Than this one that swings in the morning’s pure air;
I have touched the ones I could reach with my arm,
And fear for the storm that is coming to harm.
So come down, my love, your cheeks are so red;
It’s you that I want, none other instead;
Come to your sweetheart—I’ll wipe off the dust;
Fall down in my lap, for have you I must.
I believe you are flirting, so high in the air,
The humming bird and butterfly can fly ’round you there.
I don’t want to harm you; believe, me, I could;
I can shake you, and make you, if only I would.
One day shortly after, I saw on the ground
The apple I had worshipped, with others around;
But none was more fair to my mind, I knew,
And none was more rosy and sweeter than you.
Little Mischiefs.
Grandpa’s darlings see him coming
Up the hill, they come a running,
Till at length they stop to rest;
Then he thinks how he is blest.
Wholesome love such kisses sweet,
What care they whom they may meet,
For doesn’t grandpa always bring
His pockets full of some good thing?
And a story he can tell,
Of the pussy cat that fell in the well,
And of the children that were lost in the wood,
That ran from their home and never were good.
He can tell of the apple tree that grew so tall,
Laden with fruit, that leaned on the wall;
Then of the circus, oh, happy we,
For we are sure we will everything see.