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THE DAFFODILS

The poet in lonely mood came suddenly upon a host of daffodils and was thrilled by their joyous beauty. But delightful as the immediate scene was, it was by no means the best part of his experience. For long afterwards, when he least expected it, memory brought back the flowers to the eye of his spirit, filled his solitary moments with thoughts of past happiness, and took him once more (so to speak) into the free open air and the sunshine. Just so for us the memory of happy sights we have seen comes back again to bring us pleasure.

I

WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

gazed-and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth.

A LITTLE THANKFUL SONG

No man is without a reason to be thankful. If he lacks grati tude, the fault lies at least partly with himself.

'OR what are we thankful for? For this:

FOR a

For the breath and the sunlight of life.

For the love of the child, and the kiss

On the lips of the mother and wife.
For roses entwining,

For bud and for bloom,

And hopes that are shining
Like stars in the gloom.

For what are we thankful for? For this:
The strength and the patience of toil;
For ever the dreams that are bliss-
The hope of the seed in the soil.
For souls that are whiter
From day unto day;
And lives that are brighter
From going God's way.

For what are we thankful for? For all:
The sunlight-the shadow-the song;
The blossoms may wither and fall,
But the world moves in music along!
For simple, sweet living,

('Tis love that doth teach it)
A heaven forgiving

And faith that can reach it!

Printed in and permission from "The Atlanta Constitution."

Frank L. Stanton.

TWO RAINDROPS

(A FABLE)

An egotist is not only selfish; he is usually ridiculous as well, for he sets us to wondering as to any possible ground for his exalted opinion of himself. The real workers do not emphasize their superiority to other people, do not even emphasize the differences, but are grateful that they may share in humanity's privilege of rendering service.

WO little raindrops were born in a shower,

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And one was so pompously proud of his
power,

He got in his head an extravagant notion
He'd hustle right off and swallow the ocean.
A blade of grass that grew by the brook
Called for a drink, but no notice he took
Of such trifling things. He must hurry to be
Not a mere raindrop, but the whole sea.
A stranded ship needed water to float,
But he could not bother to help a boat.

He leaped in the sea with a puff and a blare→→
And nobody even knew he was there!

But the other drop as along it went
Found the work to do for which it was sent:
It refreshed the lily that drooped its head,
And bathed the grass that was almost dead.
It got under the ships and helped them along,
And all the while sang a cheerful song.
It worked every step of the way it went,
Bringing joy to others, to itself content.
At last it came to its journey's end,

And welcomed the sea as an old-time friend.
"An ocean," it said, "there could not be
Except for the millions of drops like me."

Joseph Morris,

MY WAGE

We may as well aim high as low, ask much as little. The world will not miss what it gives us, and our rewa will largely be governed by our demands.

I

BARGAINED with Life for a penny,

And Life would pay no more,

However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,

That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.

From "The Door of Dreams,"
Houghton Mifflin Co.

Jessie B. Rittenhouse

THE GIFT

"Trust thyself," says Emerson; "every heart vibrates to that iron string.' This is wholesome and inspiring advice, but there is, as always, another side to the question. Many a man falls into absurdities and mistakes because he cannot get outside of himself and look at himself from other people's eyes. We should cultivate the ability to see everything, including ourselves, from more than one standpoint.

wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

And ev❜n devotion!

Robert Burns.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

In the poem from which this excerpt is taken, Prometheus the Titan has been cruelly tortured for opposing the malignant will of Jupiter. In the end Prometheus wins a complete outward victory. Better still, by his steadfastness and high purpose he has won a great inward triumph. The spirit that has actuated him and the nature of his achievement are expressed in the following lines.

To suffer wives wongs darker than death or night;

O suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

VICTORY IN DEFEAT

The great, radiant souls of earth-the Davids, the Shakespeares the Lincolns-know grief and affliction as well as joy and triumph. But adversity is never to them mere adversity; it

"Doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange";

and in the crucible of character their suffering itself is transmuted into song.

DEFE

EFEAT may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the
glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Edwin Markham.

From "The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.

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