Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two. Various

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      Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,

      Holy angels guard thy bed!

      Heavenly blessings without number

      Gently falling on thy head.

      Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,

      House and home, thy friends provide;

      All without thy care or payment:

      All thy wants are well supplied.

      How much better thou'rt attended

      Than the Son of God could be,

      When from heaven He descended

      And became a child like thee!

      Soft and easy is thy cradle:

      Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay,

      When His birthplace was a stable

      And His softest bed was hay.

      Blessed babe! what glorious features—

      Spotless fair, divinely bright!

      Must He dwell with brutal creatures?

      How could angels bear the sight?

      Was there nothing but a manger

      Cursed sinners could afford

      To receive the heavenly stranger?

      Did they thus affront their Lord?

      Soft, my child: I did not chide thee,

      Though my song might sound too hard;

      'Tis thy mother sits beside thee,

      And her arm shall be thy guard.

      See the kinder shepherds round Him,

      Telling wonders from the sky!

      Where they sought Him, there they found Him,

      With His Virgin mother by.

      See the lovely babe a-dressing;

      Lovely infant, how He smiled!

      When He wept, His mother's blessing

      Soothed and hush'd the holy Child,

      Lo, He slumbers in a manger,

      Where the hornèd oxen fed:—

      Peace, my darling, here's no danger;

      There's no ox anear thy bed.

      May'st thou live to know and fear Him,

      Trust and love Him all thy days;

      Then go dwell forever near Him,

      See His face, and sing His praise!

      If all the skies were sunshine,

      Our faces would be fain

      To feel once more upon them

      The cooling splash of rain.

      If all the world were music,

      Our hearts would often long

      For one sweet strain of silence,

      To break the endless song.

      If life were always merry,

      Our souls would seek relief,

      And rest from weary laughter

      In the quiet arms of grief.

      In a valley, centuries ago,

      Grew a little fern leaf, green and slender,

      Veining delicate and fibers tender,

      Waving when the wind crept down so low;

      Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;

      Playful sunbeams darted in and found it;

      Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it;

      But no foot of man e'er came that way;

      Earth was young and keeping holiday.

      Monster fishes swam the silent main;

      Stately forests waved their giant branches;

      Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches;

      Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain,

      Nature reveled in grand mysteries.

      But the little fern was not like these,

      Did not number with the hills and trees,

      Only grew and waved its sweet, wild way;

      No one came to note it day by day.

      Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,

      Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion

      Of the strong, dread currents of the ocean;

      Moved the hills and shook the haughty wood;

      Crushed the little fern in soft, moist clay,

      Covered it, and hid it safe away.

      Oh, the long, long centuries since that day;

      Oh, the changes! Oh, life's bitter cost,

      Since the little useless fern was lost!

      Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man

      Searching Nature's secrets far and deep;

      From a fissure in a rocky steep

      He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran

      Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,

      Leafage, veining, fibers, clear and fine,

      And the fern's life lay in every line.

      So, I think, God hides some souls away,

      Sweetly to surprise us the Last Day.