I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerful

ness I can wait.

My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,

I laugh at what you call dissolution,

And I know the amplitude of time.

THE STORY OF NARCISSUS

ANONYMOUS

NARCISSUS was a beautiful youth, who, seeing his image reflected in a fountain, became so enamored of it that he pined away and was finally changed into the flower that bears his name. Poetic legends regard this as a just punishment for his hard-heartedness to Echo, and other wood-nymphs and maidens, who had loved him devotedly.

The narcissus loves the borders of streams, and is admirably personified in the story, for bending on its fragile stem it seems to be always seeking to see its own image reflected in the waters.

FROM

A WILD STRAWBERRY*

BY HENRY VAN DYKE

FOR my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so orderly and so certain; but wild

* From "Fisherman's Luck," copyright, 1899, 1905, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

flowers I love, just because there is so much chance about them. Nature is all in favor of certainty in great laws and of uncertainty in small events. You cannot appoint the day and the place for her flower shows. If you happen to drop in at the right moment she will give you a free admission. But even then it seems as if the table of beauty had been spread for the joy of a higher visitor, and in obedience to secret orders which you have not heard.

FLOWERS*

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of old;

Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars which they behold.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

* By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,

Written all over this great world of ours, Making evident our own creation

In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay,

Brilliant hopes all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night.

Those in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,

Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing-
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn.

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the center of his brazen shield.

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink.

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant,

In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to human things.

And with child-like, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.

DAFFODILS

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed

and gazed- but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.