Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/175

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The Poetical Frogs

THESE frogs are quite poetical,
Though reared amidst the slime.
For when one croaks the other jokes,
And thus completes the rhyme.




The Dark

BY PAULINE F. J. BROWER

THEY laid him in his little bed.
The little tired child, and said,
"He will not wake again to-night,
Dear dreamy One, put out the light!"
And stealing softly down the stair
They left him sweetly sleeping there.

Nor ever looked behind to see
How from the shadows timidly
The little Child Dark gently crept
To play beside him as he slept;
And lift her pleading childish eyes
To him with wondering smile, and wise.

For they were playmates, he and she.
She told her heart, and happily
She crept beside his little bed
And laid her small, dark, wistful head
Upon the pillow where till day
His curls in bright confusion lay.

But waking suddenly in fear
He did not see her there, so near.
And only sobbed aloud in fright
Until they brought a little light.
A wavering taper bright and new
To steal away the night's dim hue.

But with wide, tearful childish eyes
All filled with wounded swift surprise
The little Dark had crept away
Out where the wandering shadows stray.