There was a young lady in blue,

Who said, " Is it you? Is it you?"

When they said, "Yes, it is," she replied only, "Whizz!"

That ungracious young lady in blue.

There was a young lady of Greenwich,

Whose garments were bordered with Spinach ; But a large spotty Calf bit her shawl quite in half, Which alarmed that young lady of Greenwich.

There was an old man, who when little

Fell casually into a kettle;

But, growing too stout, he could never get out, So he passed all his life in that kettle.

EDWARD LEAR.

MORE

LIMERICKS.

THERE was a small boy of Quebec,
Who was buried in snow to his neck;
When they said. "Are you friz?"
He replied, "Yes, I is-

But we don't call this cold in Quebec."

RUDYARD KIPLING.

THERE was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a Tiger;
They came back from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the Tiger.

There was a young maid who said,

Can't I look in my ear with my eye?

If I give my mind to it,

I'm sure I can do it

You never can tell till you try."

Why

FINIS.

16th Century.

My story's ended,
My spoon is bended:
If you don't like it,
Go to the next door
And get it mended.

ANONYMOUS.

ANONYMOUS.

IV.

YOUTH.

THE DAYS GONE BY.

O THE days gone by! O the days gone by! The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;

The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the

quail

As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;

When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky,

And my happy heart brimmed over, in the days gone by.

In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped

By the honeysuckle tangles where the water-lilies

dipped,

And the ripples of the river lipped the moss along the brink

Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came

to drink,

And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant's

wayward cry

And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days gone by.

O the days gone by! O the days gone by!

The music of the laughing lip, the lustre of the eye;

The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's magic. ring

The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,

When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh,

In the golden olden glory of the days gone by.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

SEVEN TIMES TWO.

ROMANCE.

You bells in the steeple, ring out your changes,

How many soever they be,

And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges

Come over, come over to me.

Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swelling

No magical sense conveys,

And bells have forgotten their old art of telling

The fortune of future days.

"Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily While a boy listened alone:

Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone.

Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are

over,

And mine, they are yet to be;

No listening, no longing, shall aught, aught dis

Cover:

You leave the story to me.

The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather,

Preparing her hoods of snow;

She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: O, children take long to grow.

I wish, and I wish, that the spring would go faster,

Nor long summer bide so late;

And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, For some things are ill to wait.

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover.
While dear hands are laid on my head;
"The child is a woman, the book may close over,
For all the lessons are said."

I wait for my story-the birds cannot sing it,
Not one, as he sits on the tree;

The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O, bring

it!

Such as I wish it to be.

JEAN INGELOW.