260
ROBERT AND THE ROBIN . — OCTOBER .
that, " replied the old man, smiling. "We shall never want for breakfasts any more, little Matihl."
" This is a letter from Piere De Courcy," said the abbe, after a careful examination of the contents of the chair, "telling his only son, Jacques De Courcy, that these treasures were concealed in the chair, in order that, if fortune went against him, he might have something to fall back upon. But the chair seems to have passed from the family. Where can this Jacques De Courcy be?" "I am the man," said the old Rush- Seller, proudly. Jacques De Courcy, son of Piere De Courcy, thank God!"
After that morning, the market-people missed the old Rush-Seller and his little granddaughter, and passing the sunny nook where they had stood so long, wondered what had become of them. If they had chanced to pass the ancestral villa, formerly occupied by the De Courcies, they would have found them. The old man sitting in his garden, and little Matibl tending her roses and pansies that grew along its borders, the happiest pair that could be found in the quiet, sunny, old city.
ROBERT
AND THE
ROBIN.
BY ELIZABETH BOUTON.
ROBERT and robin were out on the lea,
And the robin was merry as robin could be ;
I saw him sit singing the spruces among,
Sipping the dew from their branches hung;
Eagerly singing of things that he knew,
Dancing so lightly in ether so blue.
Airily swinging, like spirit in air,
He seemed to be singing, " You know I don't care.”
I wonder what makes him so frank and so free,
What makes him keep telling that story to me;
He seems to be saying, "You know it is true,
And that's why I'm telling the story to you."
Holding on to a twig with his little brown hands,
Talking of things he so well understands,
Singing, at least so it seemed unto me,
Of things that he fancied no other could see ;
Airily swinging like pendulum there,
He seemed to be saying, " You know I don't care."
But while I am looking the robin has flown,
And the dew on the spruce has exhaled and is gone;
And while I am thinking the songster has fled,
And the wind shakes the bough , and its odors are she-;
He has gone like the wind through the ether so bine,
But the soul of his song lives with me and with you.
So careless he seems, idly fluttering there,
So thoughtlessly saying, " You know I don't care ;"
So fearlessly telling whatever he knows,
Unmindful what wit and what folly he shows ;
I wonder what makes him so frank and so free,
What makes him keep telling that story to me.
He has gone like the wind away over the town,
With his eye full of light, and his heart full of down ;
And Robert sits looking up into the sky,
And wishing he, too, like the robin might fly;
And the bird means, be happy, be careless, be free,
For the hand that has made, cares for you and for me.
OCTOBER.
BY MATTIE WINFIELD TORREY.
A GLORY rests o'er all the sea and land;
The hills are folded in a robe of mist;
Across the hyaline, by daylight spanned,
The clouds are wrought of purest amethyst.
The languid air is heavy with the sweet
Of Summer flowers dying 'neath our feet.
The royal Autumn, queenly in her pride,
Comes forth attended by a fairy train;
About her all the softest odors glide,
Sweet music chaunts for her its low refrain.
We catch her noiseless footfalls 'neath the shade,
And mark the sunshine by her presence made.
Our life is launched upon a sea of dream,
Above whose misty depths we float serene ;
We revel in the light that o'er us beams,
As on we glide the sea and sky between.
The dew of morn upon our pathway lies,
And evening wraps us in her tyrian dyes.
Rich globes of honeyed sweets hang in the sun,
Their ruby blushes deepening day by day;
From all the golden Summer they have won,
The treasured stores so deftly hid away.
With nectared hip, and downy cheek they shine,
A sumptuous banquet for a taste divine.
The winds are hushed to stillness ; on the air
There falls the drowsy hum of insect life;
The droning beetle hurls, with little care,
His whirring lance of sound amid the strife.
Our lives flow on toward the sunset verge,
With neither break of wave nor roar of surge.
