Again, beside the roadside, blows
The pink, sweet-scented brier-rose;
Its purple head the clover raises;
And all the fields are full of daisies;
And in the sunshine flutters by
A little white-winged butterfly.
From flower to flower I watch him go;
He seems a floating flake of snow:
Now to a milkweed bloom he's clinging;
There on a buttercup he's swinging;
And now he makes a little stop
Upon a scented thistle-top.
Could we change places, he and I,
And I should turn a butterfly,
How gayly, then, I'd hover over
The elder-flowers and tufts of clover!
I'd feast on honey all the day,
With nobody to say me nay.
But, could I only honey eat,
'Twould grow as tiresome as sweet:
The pretty flowers would quickly wither;
And, all day flying hither, thither,
My wings would ache: I'm glad that I
Am not that little butterfly.
Marian Douglas.
THE YOUNG CRITIC.
Ernest is five years old; and for three years he has been a subscriber to "The Nursery," the pictures in which he has enjoyed very much.
Last autumn, his parents took him with them to France. In the great city of Paris, they had rooms in a boarding-house, where they made the acquaintance of a young American painter, who had a studio in the building.