THE little dormouse is tawny red,
He makes against winter a nice snug bed; He makes his bed in a mossy bank,
Where the plants in the summer grow tall and rank.
Away from the daylight, far underground,
His sleep through the winter is quiet and sound;
And when all above him it freezes and snows,
What is it to him? for he nought of it knows.
And till the cold time of the winter is gone,
The little dormouse keeps sleeping on.
But at last, in the fresh breezy days of the spring,
When the green leaves bud, and the merry birds sing,
And the dread of the winter is over and past,
Then the little dormouse peeps out at last--
Out of his snug quiet burrow he wends,
And looks all about for his neighbours and friends;
Then he says, as he sits at the foot of a larch,
""Tis a beautiful day for the first day of March,
The violet is blooming, the blue sky is clear;
The lark is upspringing, his carol I hear;
And in the green fields are the lamb and the foal;
I'm glad I'm not sleeping, nor down in my hole."
Then away he runs, in his merry mood,
Over the fields and into the wood,
To find any grain there may chance to be,
Or any small berry that hangs on the tree.
So, from early morning till late at night,
Has the poor little creature its own delight;
Looking down to the earth, and up to the sky,
Thinking, "What a happy dormouse am I."
-MARY HOWITT
YONDER is a little drum, hanging on the wall;
Dusty wreaths, and tattered flags, round about it fall.
A shepherd youth, on Cheviot's hills, watched the sheep whose skin
A cunning workman wrought, and gave the little drum its din
Oh, pleasant are fair Cheviot's hills, with velvet verdure spread,
And pleasant 'tis, among its heath, to make your summer bed;
And sweet and clear are Cheviot's rills that trickle to its vales,
And balmily its tiny flowers breathe on the passing gales.
And thus hath felt the Shepherd-boy whilst tending of his fold;
Nor thought there was, in all the world, a spot like Cheviot's wold.
And so it was for many a day!--but change with time will come!
And he (alas for him the day!) he heard.. the little drum!
"Follow," said the drummer-boy, "would you live in story!
For he who strikes a foeman down, wins a wreath of glory."
"Rub-a-dub!" and "rub-a-dub!" the drummer beats away-
The shepherd lets his bleating flock o'er Cheviot wildly stray.
On Egypt's arid wastes of sand the shepherd now is lying;
Around him many a parching tongue for "Water!" faintly crying;
Oh, that he were on Cheviot's hills, with velvet verdure spread,
Or lying 'mid the blooming heath where oft he made his bed:
Or could he drink of those sweet rills that trickle to its vales,
Or breathe once more the balminess of Cheviot's mountain gales.
At length, upon his wearied eyes, the mists of slumber come,
And he is in his home again-till wakened by the drum!
"Take arms! take arms!" his leader cries, "the hated foeman's nigh!"
Guns loudly roar-steel clanks on steel, and thousands fall to die.
The shepherd's blood makes red the sand: "Oh! water-give me some!
My voice might reach a friendly ear-but for that little drum!"
'Mid moaning men, and dying men, the drummer kept his
And many a one by "glory" lured, did curse the drum that day.
"Rub-a-dub!" and "rub-a-dub!" the drummer beat aloud-
The shepherd. . . died! and, ere the morn, the hot sand was his shroud.
-And this is "Glory"?-Yes; and still will man the tempter follow,
Nor learn that Glory, like its drum, is but a sound-and hollow!
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