eneath the poplars' leafy screen
The shade is cool and sweet,
Where Daisy sits like any queen—
The sunbeams kiss her feet,
Steal round the border of her dress,
And one white dimpled arm caress.
She holds her dainty parasol
Above her playmate's head,
Lest the hot sun should touch her doll,
And fade the lovely red
In dolly's rosy cheek that lies,
Or dim her beautiful blue eyes.
She weaves a pretty dream, I know,
All in the garden shady,
How dolly was, long, long ago,
A little fairy lady,
And held her court on a green, green knoll,
Ere she became a mortal doll.
She thinks her blue-eyed pet knows all
The solemn words she speaks,
And feels the kisses soft that fall
Upon her mouth and cheeks:
And often when I see the two
I wish I were the doll—don't you?
r.
STORIES TOLD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
By Edwin Hodder ("Old Merry").
III.—ROYAL FUNERALS IN THE ABBEY.
O
n the occasion of our last visit to the Abbey, I told you a little about the coronations that have taken place within its walls, and apart from the venerable fane itself, the principal object connected with that long chain of events was the antique royal chair, standing in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor. Returning to the same spot, we will now look around us, and we soon see that we are in the midst of a burying-place of English kings. Sebert and his Queen Ethelgoda have their monument beside the gate at the entrance to the chapels; but there is no authentic account of a funeral here before that of Edward the Confessor, whose ashes, after three removals, repose in the shrine close beside us.
It was on January 5th, 1066, just after the consecration of his beautiful new Abbey, that the soul of St. Edward passed away. Englishmen were filled with gloomy forebodings at the event. Crowds flocked to see the body as it lay in the palace, with an unearthly smile on its rosy cheeks, and with the long thin fingers interlaced across the bosom.
Then, attired in royal robes, and bedecked with crown, crucifix, and golden chain, they laid the remains before the High Altar of the Abbey. His wife Edith was afterwards laid beside him. After the Conquest, royal personages for a time were buried in Normandy, till "the good Queen Maud," the wife of Henry I. and niece of Edgar Atheling, was laid beside the Confessor. In rebuilding the Abbey, Henry III. provided a new shrine, to which the remains of the now canonised Edward were removed, and in which (except for a short time) they have since remained.