Till Mary did appear."
How fraught with significance is that one word, "patiently!" All too eager before, that was the lamb's fault, "and grievously hath [he] answered it." He has turned over a new leaf, and wandering aimlessly about, now nibbling a cowslip, now rolling in the young grass to still the remorse gnawing at his heart, we can imagine him resolving to be a better lamb in the future,—to grow more worthy Mary's love.
"'What makes the lamb love Mary so?'
The eager children cry."
All have noticed this devotion—all wonder at it. The teacher answers in words that prove how well we read Mary's affectionate nature:
"'Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,'
The teacher did reply."
What could be a more worthy ending to so fine a poem than that the loves of the two, human and brute, should be recognized by all Mary's little world, her school-mates and her teacher. More poems like this, sentiments so pure clad in plain Saxon words, would make our world—wonderful and beautiful, as it now is—a fitter place of dwelling for "men and the children of men." We regret but one point about this gem,—that its author is "A Great Unknown."
C. McK.