Our whitest pearl we never find;
Our ripest fruit we never reach;
The flowering moments of the mind
Drop half their petals in our speech.
These are my blossoms; if they wear
One streak of morn or evening's glow,
Accept them; but to me more fair
The buds of song that never blow.
* * * * *
THE CHILDREN'S CITIES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER."
There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and not one above another.
His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime.
The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will was drawn up as he desired.
One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better boat,—for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when the will blew away, that he could speak no more when the lawyers came back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died without telling his sons what he wished them to do.
However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little persons,—at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never quarrelled,—so that the child-people loved them almost as well as they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, because there was no king's will, and by rights the eldest ought to have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called his brothers to him and said,—