Verses for Children Part 9

(_Ah me! Alas! Alack! Ah, well-a-day!_) Would it be safe for me That fateful form to see?"

(_Alas! Alack! Ah, well-a-day! Ah me!_)

So far the Poet read his pleasing strain, Then it began to rain: He closed his book.

"Farewell, fair Nymph!" he cried, as with a lingering look His homeward way he took; And nevermore that Poet saw that Brook.

The Brook pa.s.sed several days in anxious expectation Of transformation Into a lovely nymph bedecked with flowers; And longed impatiently to prove those powers-- Those dangerous powers--of witchery and wile, That should all mortal men mysteriously beguile; For life as running water lost its charm Before the exciting hope of doing so much harm.

And yet the hope seemed vain; Despite the Poet's strain, Though the days came and went, and went and came, The seasons changed, the Brook remained the same.

The Brook was almost tired Of vainly hoping to become a Naad; When on a certain Summer's day, Dame Nature came that way, Busy as usual, With great and small; Who, at the water-side Dipping her clever fingers in the tide, Out of the mud drew creeping things, And, smiling on them, gave them radiant wings.

Now when the poor Brook murmured, "Mother dear!"

Dame Nature bent to hear, And the sad stream poured all its woes into her sympathetic ear, Crying,--"Oh, bounteous Mother!

Do not do more for one child than another; If of a dirty grub or two (Dressing them up in royal blue) You make so many s.h.i.+ning Demoiselles,[3]

Change me as well; Uplift me also from this narrow place, Where life runs on at such a petty pace; Give me a human form, dear Dame, and then See how I'll flit, and flash, and fascinate the race of men!"

[Footnote 3: The "Demoiselle" Dragon-fly, a well-known slender variety (_Libellula_), with body of brilliant blue.]

Then Mother Nature, who is wondrous wise, Did that deluded little Brook advise To be contented with its own fair face, And with a good and cheerful grace, Run, as of yore, on its appointed race, Safe both from giving and receiving harms; Outliving human lives, outlasting human charms.

But good advice, however kind, Is thrown away upon a made-up mind, And this was all that babbling Brook would say-- "Give me a human face and form, if only for a day!"

Then quoth Dame Nature:--"Oh, my foolish child!

Ere I fulfil a wish so wild, Since I am kind and you are ignorant, This much I grant: You shall arise from out your gra.s.sy bed, And gathered to the waters overhead Shall thus and then Look down and see the world, and all the ways of men!"

Scarce had the Dame Departed to the place from whence she came, When in that very hour, The sun burst forth with most amazing power.

Dame Nature bade him blaze, and he obeyed; He drove the fainting flocks into the shade, He ripened all the flowers into seed, He dried the river, and he parched the mead; Then on the Brook he turned his burning eye, Which rose and left its narrow channel dry; And, climbing up by sunbeams to the sky, Became a snow-white cloud, which softly floated by.

It was a glorious Autumn day, And all the world with red and gold was gay; When, as this cloud athwart the heavens did pa.s.s, Lying below, it saw a Poet on the gra.s.s, The very Poet who had such a stir made, To prove the Brook was a fresh-water mermaid.

And now, Holding his book above his corrugated brow-- He read aloud, And thus apostrophized the pa.s.sing cloud: "Oh, snowy-breasted Fair!

Mysterious messenger of upper air!

Can you be of those female forms so dread,[4]

Who bear the souls of the heroic dead To where undying laurels crown the warrior's head?

Or, as you smile and hover, Are you not rather some fond G.o.ddess of the skies who waits a mortal lover?

And who, ah! who is he?

--And what, oh, what!--your message to poor me?"-- So far the Poet. Then he stopped: His book had dropped.

But ere the delighted cloud could make reply, Dame Nature hurried by, And it put forth a wild beseeching cry-- "Give me a human face and form!"

Dame Nature frowned, and all the heavens grew black with storm.

[Footnote 4: The Walkyrie in Teutonic mythology, whose office it is to bear the souls of fallen heroes from the field of battle.]

But very soon, Upon a frosty winter's noon, The little cloud returned below, Falling in flakes of snow; Falling most softly on the floor most hard Of an old manor-house court-yard.

And as it hastened to the earth again, The children sang behind the window-pane: "Old woman, up yonder, plucking your geese, Quickly pluck them, and quickly cease; Throw down the feathers, and when you have done, We shall have fun--we shall have fun."

The snow had fallen, when with song and shout The girls and boys came out; Six st.u.r.dy little men and maids, Carrying heather-brooms, and wooden spades, Who swept and shovelled up the fallen snow, Which whimpered,--"Oh! oh! oh!

Oh, Mother, most severe!

Pity me lying here, I'm shaken all to pieces with that storm, Raise me and clothe me in a human form."

They swept up much, they shovelled up more, There never was such a snow-man before!

They built him bravely with might and main, There never will be such a snow-man again!

His legs were big, his body was bigger, They made him a most imposing figure; His eyes were large and as black as coal, For a cinder was placed in each round hole.

And the sight of his teeth would have made yours ache, Being simply the teeth of an ancient rake.

They smoothed his forehead, they patted his back, There wasn't a single unsightly crack; And when they had given the final pat, They crowned his head with the scare-crow's hat.

And so The Brook--the Cloud--the Snow, Got its own way after so many days, And did put on a human form and face.

But whether The situation pleased it altogether; If it is nice To be a man of snow and ice; Whether it feels Painful, when one congeals; How this man felt When he began to melt; Whether he wore his human form and face With any extraordinary grace; If many mortals fell As victims to the spell; Or if, As he stood, stark and stiff, With a bare broomstick in his arms, And not a trace of transcendental charms, That man of snow Grew wise enough to know That the Brook's hopes were but a Poet's dream, And well content to be again a stream, On the first sunny day, Flowed quietly away; Or what the end was--You must ask the Poet, I don't know it.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A SOLDIER'S CHILDREN.

Our home used to be in a hut in the dear old Camp, with lots of bands and trumpets and bugles and Dead Marches, and three times a day there was a gun, But now we live in View Villa at the top of the village, and it isn't nearly such fun.

We never see any soldiers, except one day we saw a Volunteer, and we ran after him as hard as ever we could go, for we thought he looked rather brave; But there's only been one funeral since we came, an ugly black thing with no Dead March or Union Jack, and not even a firing party at the grave.

There is a man in uniform to bring the letters, but he's nothing like our old Orderly, Brown; I told him, through the hedge, "Your facings are dirty, and you'd have to wear your belt if my father was at home," and oh, how he did frown!

But things can't be expected to go right when Old Father's away, and he's gone to the war; Which is why we play at soldiers and fighting battles more than ever we did before.

And I try to keep things together: every morning I have a parade of myself and d.i.c.k, To see that we are clean, and to drill him and do sword-exercise with poor Grandpapa's stick.

Grandpapa's dead, so he doesn't want it now, and d.i.c.k's too young for a real tin sword like mine: He's so young he won't make up his mind whether he'll go into the Artillery or the Line.

I want him to be a gunner, for his frock's dark blue, and Captain Powder gave us a wooden gun with an elastic that shoots quite a big ball.

It's nonsense d.i.c.k's saying he'd like to be a Chaplain, for that's not being a soldier at all.

Besides, he always wants to be Drum-Major when we've funerals, to stamp the stick and sing RUM--TUM--TUM-- To the Dead March in _Saul_ (that's the name of the tune, and you play it on a drum).

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Mary is so good, she might easily be a Chaplain, but of course she can't be anything that wants man; She likes nursing her doll, but when we have battles she moves the lead soldiers about, and does what she can.

She never grumbles about not being able to grow up into a General, though I should think it must be a great bore.

I asked her what she would do if she were grown up into a woman, and belonged to some one who was wounded in the war,-- She said she'd go out and nurse him: so I said, "But supposing you couldn't get him better, and he died; how would you behave?"

And she said if she couldn't get a s.h.i.+p to bring him home in, she should stay out there and grow a garden, and make wreaths for his grave.

Nurse says we oughtn't to have battles, now Father's gone to battle, but that's just the reason why!

And I don't believe one bit what she said about its making Mother cry.

Only she does like us to put away our toys on Sunday, so we can't have the soldiers or the gun; But yesterday d.i.c.k said, "I was thinking in church, and I've thought of a game about soldiers, and it's a perfectly Sunday one; It's a Church Parade: you'll have to be a lot of officers and men, Mary'll do for a few wives and families, and I'll be Chaplain to the Forces and pray for everyone at the war."

So he put his nightgown over his knickerbocker suit, and knelt on the Ashantee stool, and Mary and I knelt on the floor.

I think it was rather nice of d.i.c.k, for he said what put it into his head Was thinking they mightn't have much time for their prayers on active service, and we ought to say them instead.

I should have liked to parade the lead soldiers, but I didn't, for Mother says, "What's the good of being a soldier's son if you can't do as you're bid?"

But we thought there'd be no harm in letting the box be there if we kept on the lid.

d.i.c.k couldn't pray out of the Prayer-book, because he's backward with being delicate, and he can't read; So he had to make a prayer out of his own head, and I think he did it very well indeed.

He began, "G.o.d save the Queen, and the Army and the Navy, and the Irregular Forces and the Volunteers!

Especially Old Father (he went out with the first draft, and he's a Captain in the Royal Engineers").

But I said, "I don't think 'G.o.d save the Queen' is a proper prayer, I think it's only a sort of three cheers."

So he said, "G.o.d bless the Generals, and the Colonels, and the Majors, and the Captains, and the Lieutenants, and the Sub-lieutenants, and the Quartermasters, and the non-commissioned officers, and the men; And the bands, and the colours, and the guns, and the horses and the wagons, and the gun-carriage they use for the funerals; and please I should like them all to come home safe again.

(Don't, Mary! I haven't finished; it isn't time for you to say Amen.) I haven't prayed for the Chaplains, or the Doctors who help the poor men left groaning on the ground when the victories are won; And I want to pray particularly for the very poor ones who die of fever and miss all the fighting and fun.

G.o.d bless the good soldiers, like Old Father, and Captain Powder, and the men with good-conduct medals; and please let the naughty ones all be forgiven; And if the black men kill our men, send down white angels to take their poor dear souls to Heaven!

_Now_ you may both say Amen, and I shall give out hymn four hundred and thirty-seven."

There are eight verses and eight Alleluias, and we can't sing very well, but we did our best, Only Mary would cry in the verse about "Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest!"

But we're both very glad d.i.c.k has found out a Sunday game about fighting, for we never had one before; And now we can play at soldiers every day till Old Father comes home from the war.

[Ill.u.s.tration]