INTRODUCTORY.

Somewhere in that uncertain "long ago,"

Whose dim and vague chronology is all

That elfin tales or nursery fables know,

Rose a rare spirit,—keen, and quick, and quaint,—

Whom by the title, whether fact or feint,

Mythic or real, Mother Goose we call.

Of Momus and Minerva sprang the birth

That gave the laughing oracle to earth:

A brimming bowl she bears, that, frothing

high

With sparkling nonsense, seemeth non-

sense all;

Till, the bright, floating syllabub blown by,

Lo, in its ruby splendor doth upshine

The crimson radiance of Olympian wine

By Pallas poured, in Jove's own banquet-

hall.

The world was but a baby when she came;

So to her songs it listened, and her name

Grew to a word of power, her voice a spell

With charm to soothe its infant wearying

well.

But, in a later and maturer age,

Developed to a dignity more sage,

Having its Shakspeares and its Words-

worths now,

Its Southeys and its Tennysons, to wear

A halo on the high and lordly brow,

Or poet-laurels in the waving hair;

Its Lowells, Whittiers, Longfellows, to sing

Ballads of beauty, like the notes of spring,

The wise and prudent ones to nursery use

Leave the dear lyrics of old Mother Goose.

Wisdom of babes,—the nursery Shak-

speare stilly—

Cackles she ever with the same good-will:

Uttering deep counsels in a foolish guise,

That come as warnings, even to the wise;

As when, of old, the martial city slept,

Unconscious of the wily foe that crept

Under the midnight, till the alarm was heard

Out from the mouth of Rome's plebeian

bird.

Full many a rare and subtile thing hath

she,

Undreamed of in the world's philosophy:

Toss-balls for children hath she humbly

rolled,

That shining jewels secretly enfold;

Sibylline leaves she casteth on the air,

Twisted in fool's-caps, blown unheeded by,

That, in their lines grotesque, albeit, bear

Words of grave truth, and signal prophecy;

And lurking satire, whose sharp lashes hit

A world of follies with their homely writ;

With here and there a roughly uttered hint,

That makes you wonder at the beauty

in't;

As if, along the wayside's dusty edge,

A hot-house flower had blossomed in a

hedge.

So, like brave Layard in old Nineveh,

Among the memories of ancient song,

As curious relics, I would fain bestir;

And gather, if it might be, into strong

And shapely show, some wealth of its

lost lore;

Fragments of Truth's own architecture,

strewed

In forms disjointed, whimsical, and rude,

That yet, to simpler vision, grandly stood

Complete, beneath the golden light of

BRAHMIC.

If a great poet think he sings,

Or if the poem think it's sung,

They do but sport the scattered plumes

That Mother Goose aside hath flung.

Far or forgot to me is near:

Shakspeare and Punch are all the same;

The vanished thoughts do reappear,

And shape themselves to fun or fame.

They use my quills, and leave me out,

Oblivious that I wear the wings;

Or that a Goose has been about,

When every little gosling sings.

Strong men may strive for grander thought,

But, six times out of every seven,

My old philosophy hath taught

All they can master this side heaven.

LITTLE BOY BLUE.

"Little boy blue! come blow your horn!

The sheep in the meadow, the cows in the corn!

Where's little boy blue, that looks after the sheep?

He's under the hay-mow, fast asleep!"

Of morals in novels, we've had not a few;

With now and then novel moralities too;

And we 've weekly exhortings from pulpit

to pew;

But it strikes me,—and so it may chance

to strike you,—

Scarce any are better than "Little Boy

Blue."

For the veteran dame knows her business:

right well,

And her quaint admonitions unerringly

tell:

She strings a few odd, careless words in a

jingle,

And the sharp, latent truth fairly makes

your ears tingle.

"Azure-robed Youth!" she cries, "up to

thy post!

And watch, lest thy wealth be all scattered

and lost:

Silly thoughts are astray, beyond call of

the horn,

And passion breaks loose, and gets into the

corn!

Is this the way Conscience looks after her

sheep?

In the world's soothing shadow, gone sound-

ly asleep?"

Is n't that, now, a sermon? No lengthened

vexation

Of heads, and divisions, and argumenta-

tion,

But a straightforward leap to the sure ap-

plication;

And, though many a longer harangue is

forgot,

Of which careful reporters take notes on

the spot,

I think,—as the "Deacon" declared of his

"shay,"

Put together for lasting for ever and aye,—

A like immortality holding in view,

The old lady's discourse will undoubtedly

"dew"!

HICCOKY, DICCORY, DOCK.

"Hiccory, diccory, dock!

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one, and down she run:

Hiccory, diccory, dock!"

She had her simple nest in a safe and cun-

ning place,

Away down in the quiet of the deep, old-

fashioned case.

A little crevice nibbled out led forth into

the world,

And overhead, on busy wheels, the hours

and minutes whirled.

High up in mystic glooms of space was

awful scenery

Of wires, and weights, and springs, and all

great Time's machinery;

But she had nought to do with these; a

blessed little mouse,

Whose only care beneath the sun was just

to keep her house.

For this was all she knew, or could; with-

out her, just the same

The earth's great centre drew the weight;

the pendulum went and came;

And days were born, and grew, and died;

and stroke by stroke were told

The hours by which the world and men

are ever growing old.

It suddenly occurred to her,—it struck her

all at once,—

That living among things of power, her-

self had been a dunce.

"Somebody winds the clock!" she cried

"Somebody comes and brings

An iron finger that feels through and fum-

bles at the springs;

"And then it happens; then the buzz is

stirred afar and near,

And the hour sounds, and everywhere the

great world stops to hear.

I don't think, after all, it seems so hard a

thing to do.

I know the way—I might run up and

make folks listen too."

She sprang upon the leaden weight; but

not the merest whit

Did all her added gravity avail to hurry it.

She clambered up the steady cord; it wav-

ered not a hair.

She got among the earnest wheels; they

knew not she was there.

She sat beside the silent bell; the patient

hammer lay

Waiting an unseen bidding for the word

that it should say.

Only a solemn whisper thrilled the cham-

bers of the clock,

And the mouse listened: "Hiccory! hie—

diccory! die—dock!"

Something was coming. She had hit the

ripeness of the time;

No tiny second was outreached by that ex-

ultant climb;

In no wise did the planet turn the faster to

the sun;

She only met the instant, but the great

clock sounded—"One!"

What then? Did she stand gloriously

among those central things,

Her eye upon the vibrant bell, her heel

upon the springs?

Was her soul grand in unison with that

resounding chime,

And her pulse-beat identical with the high

pulse of Time?

Ah, she was little! When the air first

shattered with that shock,

Down ran the mouse into her hole. "Hic,

diccory! die—dock!"

Too plain to be translated is the truth the

tale would show,

Small souls, in solemn upshot, had better

wait below.

BO-PEEP.

"Little Bo-Peep

Has lost her sheep,

And does n't know where to find 'em;

Let 'em alone,

And they 'll come home,

And bring their tails behind 'em."

Hope beckoned Youth, and bade him keep,

On Life's broad plain, his shining sheep,

And while along the sward they came,

He called them over, each by name;

This one was Friendship,—that was Health;

Another Love,—another Wealth;

One, fat, full-fleeced, was Social Station;

Another, stainless, Reputation;

In truth, a goodly flock of sheep,—

A goodly flock, but hard to keep.

Youth laid him down beside a fountain;

Hope spread his wings to scale a mountain;

And, somehow, Youth fell fast asleep,

And left his crook to tend the sheep:

No wonder, as the legend says,

They took to very crooked ways.

He woke—to hear a distant bleating,—

The faithless quadrupeds were fleeting!

Wealth vanished first, with stealthy tread,

Then Friendship followed—to be fed,—

And foolish Love was after led;

Fair Fame,—alas! some thievish scamp

Had marked him with his own black stamp!

And he, with Honor at his heels,

Was out of sight across the fields.

Health just hangs doubtful,—distant Hope

Looks backward from the mountain slope,—

And Youth himself—no longer Youth—

Stands face to face with bitter Truth.

Yet let them go! 'T were all in vain

To linger here in faith to find 'em;

Forward!—nor pause to think of pain,—

Till somewhere, on a nobler plain,

A surer Hope shall lead the train

Of joys withheld to come again

With golden fleeces trailed behind 'em!

SOLOMON GRUNDY.

"Solomon Grundy

Born on Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Sick on Thursday,

Worse on Friday,

Dead on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday:

This was the end

Of Solomon Grundy."

So sings the unpretentious Muse

That guides the quill of Mother Goose,

And in one week of mortal strife

Presents the epitome of Life:

But down sits Billy Shakspeare next,

And, coolly taking up the text,

His thought pursues the trail of mine,

And, lo! the "Seven Ages" shine!

O world! O critics! can't you see

How Shakspeare plagiarizes me?

And other bards will after come,

To echo in a later age,

"He lived,—he died: behold the sum,

The abstract of the historian's page"

Yet once for all the thing was done,

Complete in Grundy's pilgrimage.

For not a child upon the knee

But hath the moral learned of me;

And measured, in a seven days' span,

The whole experience of man.

BOWLS.

"Three wise men of Gotham

Went to sea in a bowl:

If the bowl had been stronger,

My song had been longer."

Mysteriously suggestive! A vague hint,

Yet a rare touch of most effective art,

That of the bowl, and all the voyagers in't,

Tells nothing, save the fact that they did

start.

There ending suddenly, with subtle craft,

The story stands—as 'twere a broken

shafts—'

More eloquent in mute signification,

Than lengthened detail, or precise relation.

So perfect in its very non-achieving,

That, of a truth, I cannot help believing

A rash attempt at paraphrasing it

May prove a blunder, rather than a hit.

Still, I must wish the venerable soul

Had been explicit as regards the bowl

Was it, perhaps, a railroad speculation?

Or a big ship to carry all creation,

That, by some kink of its machinery,

Failed, in the end, to carry even three?

Or other fond, erroneous calculation

Of splendid schemes that died disastrously?

It must have been of Gotham manufacture;

Though strangely weak, and liable to frac-

ture.

Yet—pause a moment—strangely, did I

say?

Scarcely, since, after all, it was but clay;—

The stuff Hope takes to build her brittle

boat,

And therein sets the wisest men afloat.

Truly, a bark would need be somewhat

stronger,

To make the halting history much longer.

Doubtless, the good Dame did but gener-

alize,—

Took a broad glance at human enterprise,

And earthly expectation, and so drew,

In pithy lines, a parable most true,—

Kindly to warn us ere we sail away,

With life's great venture, in an ark of

clay,

Where shivered fragments all around be-

token,

How even the "golden bowl" at last lies

broken!

Original

CRADLED IN GREEN.

"Rockaby, baby,

Your cradle is green;

Father's a nobleman,

Mother's a queen;

And Betty's a lady,

And wears a gold ring,

And Johnny's a drummer,

And drums for the king!"

O golden gift of childhood!

That, with its kingly touch,

Transforms to more than royalty

The thing it loveth much!

O second sight, bestowed alone

Upon the baby seer,

That the glory held in Heaven's reserve

Discerneth even here!

Though he be the humblest craftsman,

No silk nor ermine piled

Could make the father seem a whit

More noble to the child;

And the mother,—ah, what queenlier crown

Could rest upon her brow,

Than the fair and gentle dignity

It weareth to him now?

E'en the gilded ring that Michael

For a penny fairing bought,

Is the seal of Betty's ladyhood

To his untutored thought;

And the darling drum about his neck,—

His very newest toy,—

A bandsman unto Majesty

Hath straightway made the boy!

O golden gift of childhood!

If the talisman might last,

How the dull Present still should gleam

With the glory of the Past!

But the things of earth about us

Fade and dwindle as we go,

And the long perspective of our life

Is truth, and not a show!

"SIMILIA SIMILIBUS."

"There was a man in our town,

And he was wondrous wise:

He jumped into a bramble-bush,

And scratched out both his eyes.

But when he saw his eyes were out,

With all his might and main

He jumped into another bush,

And scratched them in again!"

Old Dr. Hahnemann read the tale,

(And he was wondrous wise,)

Of the man who, in the bramble-bush,

Had scratched out both his eyes.

And the fancy tickled mightily

His misty German brain,

That, by jumping in another bush,

He got them back again.

So he called it "homo-hop-athy".

And soon it came about,

That a curious crowd among the thorns

Was hopping in and out.

Yet, disguise it by the longest name

They may, it is no use;

For the world knows the discovery

Was made by Mother Goose!

And not alone in medicine

Doth the theory hold good;

In Life and in Philosophy,

The maxim still hath stood:

A morsel more of anything,

When one has got enough,

And Nature's energy disowns

The whole unkindly stuff.

A second negative affirms;

And two magnetic poles

Of charge identical, repel,—

A s sameness sunders souls.

Touched with a first, fresh suffering,

All solace is despised;

But gathered sorrows grow serene,

And grief is neutralized.

And he who, in the world's mêlée,

Hath chanced the worse to catch,

May mend the matter, if he come

Back, boldly, to the scratch;

Minding the lesson he received

In boyhood, from his mother.

Whose cheery word, for many a bump,

Was, Up and take another!

HOBBY-HORSES.

"I had a little pony,

His name was Dapple Gray:

I lent him to a lady

To ride a mile away.

She whipped him,

She lashed him,

She rode him through the mire;

I would n't lend my pony now,

For all the lady's hire."

Our hobbies, of whatever sort

They be, mine honest friend,

Of fancy, enterprise, or thought,

'T is hardly wise to lend.

Some fair imagination, shrined

In form poetic, maybe,

You fondly trusted to the World,—

That most capricious Lady.

Or a high, romantic theory,

Magnificently planned,

In flush of eager confidence

You bade her take in hand.

But she whipped it, and she lashed it,

And bespattered it with mire,

Till your very soul felt stained within,

And scourged with stripes of fire.

Yet take this thought, and hold it fast,

Ye Martyrs of To-day!

That same great World, with all its scorn,

You 've lifted on its way!