“We talked so much about this little flower that we got to making rhymes about it; and, every time we made a new rhyme, we were much delighted, you may be sure. How we wished we had some way to write down what we thought! It would have been much easier, and a great satisfaction. But, for all that, we finally got quite a song of it, which I have not forgotten, even to this time. To be sure we did not know much about making verses, and nothing at all about what they call ‘feet’ in poetry; yet we got some pretty good rhymes for all, though they might be called a little worm-fency, or like as if they hadn’t got their sea-legs on, you know. Now, would you like to hear this little song that the Dean and I made about the little Arctic flower?”

“O yes, yes, dear Captain Hardy!—yes, yes, indeed!” said the children, in such a loud and universal chorus that nobody could have told who “deared” the Captain, or who said “O,” or who, “indeed”; but you may be sure they all said “yes!” and so the Captain, being thus encouraged, cleared his throat, and said he would repeat it.

“My impression is,” he continued, “that it isn’t exactly a song; in fact, I don’t know what it is. I should hardly venture on calling it a ‘poem,’ you see; but still, for all that, we must give it a name, you know, and ‘song,’ ‘poem,’ or what not, its right title anyhow is:—

THE ARCTIC FLOWER.
O tiny, tiny Arctic flower
Where have you kept yourself so long?
Deep buried in a snowy bower?
And did the winter treat you wrong?
You little, smiling, gladsome thing!
You pretty, pretty flower of spring!
You little, little, wee, wee thing!
So bright, so cheery in the sun,
So everything that every one
Would wish a flower to bring.
You tiny, tiny little thing!
I’m so afraid the frosts will nip
Your little feet, you tenderling,
You crazy, crazy little thing!
What e’er possessed you to come up
And nestle there beside the snow,
As if you’d warm it with a glow
Of golden light from your bright face,
On which there is no single trace
Of anything like sorrow?
Cheery, cheery, always cheery,
Always cheery, never weary,
E’en with frozen sod close bound,
E’en with snow all piled around,
E’en with the frosts upon the ground,
Your little tender roots to chill!
O, what a royal little will
You have, you little gladsome thing,
You pretty, pretty flower of spring,
You little, little weesome mite,
You tiny, tiny little sprite!
E’en now the snows are at your feet,
And piled a hundred times your height,
Close, close beside your face so sweet!
And yet you smile, you pretty thing,
You pretty, pretty flower of spring,
You little, little, wee, wee thing!
And do not seem to care a bit,
And look as happy, every whit,
As any other flower of spring.
And what a lesson, too, you bring
To all of us, you little thing!
You show us how to persevere,
You show us how a happy cheer
May always on the face appear,
If God we trust and God we fear;
For God is every, every where,
And this the flower doth declare,—
The tiny, tiny little flower,
The weesome, weesome little flower,
The little, smiling, gladsome thing,
The pretty, pretty flower of spring,
The little, little, wee, wee thing.

“There, now you have it!” exclaimed the Captain, drawing a very long breath, and looking around, no doubt to see the impression he had produced,—“there you have it, my dears!”

The children all expressed themselves highly delighted with this effort of the Captain’s in the poetical way, and they all declared if that wasn’t a song they “would like to see one.”

Thus greatly flattered by the pleasure the children received from his recitation of what had become old to him, and deeply rooted in his memory, the Captain resumed once more the thread of his narrative, or, rather, “once more picked up the broken yarn, and spun away,” as he would have more graphically expressed it.

“Well, well,” continued the Captain, “you see our little flower died after a while, and all the other little flowers died; and this brought us to the end of our third summer on the island and into the third winter.

“This winter passed away as the previous ones had done, and we felt still greater resignation.