TO E. M.— A BALLAD OF NURSERY RHYME.

Strawberries that in gardens grow

Are plump and juicy fine,

But sweeter far as wise men know

Spring from the woodland vine.

No need for bowl or silver spoon,

Sugar or spice or cream,

Has the wild berry plucked in June

Beside the trickling stream.

One such to melt at the tongue's root,

Confounding taste with scent,

Beats a full peck of garden fruit:

Which points my argument.

May sudden justice overtake

And snap the froward pen,

That old and palsied poets shake

Against the minds of men.

Blasphemers trusting to hold caught

In far-flung webs of ink,

The utmost ends of human thought

Till nothing's left to think.

But may the gift of heavenly peace

And glory for all time

Keep the boy Tom who tending geese

First made the nursery rhyme.

By the brookside one August day,

Using the sun for clock,

Tom whiled the languid hours away

Beside his scattering flock.

Carving with a sharp pointed stone

On a broad slab of slate

The famous lives of Jumping Joan,

Dan Fox and Greedy Kate.

Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,

Spain, Scotland, Babylon,

That sister Kate might learn the words

To tell to toddling John.

But Kate who could not stay content

To learn her lesson pat

New beauty to the rough lines lent

By changing this or that.

And she herself set fresh things down

In corners of her slate,

Of lambs and lanes and London town.

God's blessing fall on Kate!

The baby loved the simple sound,

With jolly glee he shook,

And soon the lines grew smooth and round

Like pebbles in Tom's brook.