[GOOD-NIGHT.]
BY W. T. PETERS.
Good-night, happy stars,
With your yellow eyes;
Good-night, lady moon,
In the evening skies;
Good-night, dusky world
And the boundless deep;
I am tired out;
It is time to sleep—
Time, time to sleep.
Good-night! Good-night!
Good-night, weary boy;
It has been decreed
That some mysteries
Only a child can read;
But the sweet child-heart
May you always keep,
And the stars will be yours,
And the boundless deep—
The boundless, boundless deep.
Good-night! Good-night!
[SEEING THE BIG WORLD.]
BY F. E. FRYATT.
Andrew, the florist, set out one fine day for a trip to the wood that lay a mile beyond his greenhouses.
He was a grand old man, who loved all the beautiful things God has scattered over this earth, from the tiny grass blade pushing up through the brown mould, to the mighty oak spreading its branches like a giant in the forest. As he entered the wood he marked how the sunshine, flickering down through the trees, made patches of gold on the green turf, and turned the pebbles in the brook into pearls. Time had not dimmed old Andrew's eye nor dulled his ear, nor had he lived his sixty years without learning to understand the soft voices of nature. As he strolled thoughtfully along he became aware of a gentle murmuring sound proceeding from groups of flowers that seemed to nod and smile when he drew near them. Throwing himself at full length on the turf, he listened; at first he could make nothing out of all the sweet babble poured into his ear, until Jack-in-the-pulpit became spokesman for the occasion.