Graded Memory Selections. Various

      They drive home the cows from the pasture,

      Up through the long shady lane,

      Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields,

      That are yellow with ripening grain.

      They find, in the thick, waving grasses,

      Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows.

      They gather the earliest snowdrops,

      And the first crimson buds of the rose.

      They toss the new hay in the meadow;

      They gather the elder-bloom white;

      They find where the dusky grapes purple

      In the soft-tinted October light.

      They know where the apples hang ripest,

      And are sweeter than Italy’s wines;

      They know where the fruit hangs the thickest

      On the long, thorny blackberry-vines.

      They gather the delicate sea-weeds,

      And build tiny castles of sand;

      They pick up the beautiful sea-shells—

      Fairy barks that have drifted to land.

      They wave from the tall, rocking tree-tops

      Where the oriole’s hammock-nest swings;

      And at night-time are folded in slumber

      By a song that a fond mother sings.

      Those who toil bravely are strongest;

      The humble and poor become great;

      And so from these brown-handed children

      Shall grow mighty rulers of state.

      The pen of the author and statesman—

      The noble and wise of the land—

      The sword, and the chisel, and palette,

      Shall be held in the little brown hand.

      Oh, I wish the Winter would go,

      And I wish the Summer would come,

      Then the big brown farmers will hoe,

      And the little brown bee will hum.

      Then the robin his fife will trill,

      And the wood-piper beat his drum;

      And out of their tents on the hill

      The little green troops will come.

      Then around and over the trees

      With a flutter and flirt we’ll go,

      A rollicking, frolicking breeze,

      And away with a frisk ho! ho!

      I come from haunts of coot and hern,

      I make a sudden sally,

      And sparkle out among the fern,

      To bicker down the valley.

      By thirty hills I hurry down,

      Or slip between the ridges,

      By twenty thorps, a little town,

      And half a hundred bridges.

      Till last by Philip’s farm I flow

      To join the brimming river;

      For men may come, and men may go,

      But I go on forever.

      I chatter over stony ways,

      In little sharps and trebles;

      I bubble into eddying bays;

      I babble on the pebbles.

      With many a curve my bank I fret

      By many a field and fallow,

      And many a fairy foreland set

      With willow-weed and mallow.

      I chatter, chatter as I flow

      To join the brimming river,

      For men may come, and men may go,

      But I go on forever.

      I wind about, and in and out,

      With here a blossom sailing,

      And here and there a lusty trout,

      And here and there a grayling,

      And here and there a foamy flake

      Upon me as I travel,

      With many a silvery waterbreak

      Above the golden gravel,

      And draw them all along and flow

      To join the brimming river,

      For men may come, and men may go,

      But I go on forever.

      I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

      I slide by hazel covers,

      I move the sweet forget-me-nots

      That grow for happy lovers.

      I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

      Among my skimming swallows;

      I make the netted sunbeam dance

      Against my sandy shallows.

      I murmur under moon and stars

      In brambly wildernesses;

      I linger by my shingly bars;

      I loiter round my cresses;

      And out again I curve and flow

      To join the brimming river,

      For men may come and men may go

      But I go on forever.

      Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,

      With the wonderful water around you curled,

      And the wonderful grass upon your breast—

      World, you are beautifully dressed.

      The wonderful air is over me,

      And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree,

      It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,

      And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.

      You, friendly Earth, how far do you go,

      With the wheatfields that nod and the rivers that flow,

      With cities and gardens, and cliffs, and isles,

      And people upon you for thousands of miles?

      Ah, you are so great, and I am so small,

      I tremble to think of you, World, at all;

      And yet, when I said my prayers, to-day,

      A whisper inside me seemed to say,

      “You are more than the earth, though you are such a dot:

      You can love and think, and the Earth can not!”