Gathering raindrops out of the air,

For the poor flowers, dying down there.

When will you scatter some of the showers,
You have been saving, down to the flowers?

Where the Lord sends me, always I roam,
When the Lord bids me, baby, I'll come.

IV.

THE BABES IN THE WOODS.

AUTHOR NOT KNOWN.

My dear, do you know that a long time ago,
Two poor little children, whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away on a fine summer's day,

And left in the woods, as I've heard people say?

When it was night, so sad was their plight;

The sun, it went down, and the moon gave no light; They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly

cried;

And the poor little things lay down and died.

When they were dead, the robins so red

Brought strawberry leaves and over them spread,
And all the day long they sang in their song,

"Poor babes in the woods! Poor babes in the woods!

V.

THROW AWAY TROUBLE.

AUTHOR NOT KNOWN.

THERE'S many a trouble

Would break like a bubble,

And into the waters of Lethe depart;

Did we not rehearse it,

And tenderly nurse it,

And give it a permanent place in the heart.

There's many a sorrow

Would vanish to-morrow,

Were we but willing to furnish the wings.

So sadly intruding,

And quietly brooding,

It hatches all sorts of terrible things.

VI.

OBEDIENCE.

PHOEBE CARY.

If you're told to do a thing,
And mean to do it really;

Never let it be by halves;

Do it fully, freely!

WHO taught you to sing,

My sweet pretty bird?

Who tuned your melodious throat?
You make all the hills and valleys to ring;

You bring the first news of the earliest spring
With your loud and silvery note.

"It was God," said the lark,

As he rose from the earth;

"He gives us the good we enjoy,

He painted our wings, he gave us our voice,
He gives us our food and bids us rejoice,
Good-morning, my beautiful boy."

5

VIII.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR.

AUTHOR NOT KNOWN.

TWINKLE, twinkle, little star;
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark;
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
Yet often through my window peep;
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright but tiny spark
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

But, oh! there were so many,
At last the carriage broke;
And to the ground came tumbling
Those frightened little folk.

Through the moss and grasses,
They were compelled to roam,
Until a brooklet found them,

And carried them all home.