"W j / .1 j^&ZUULfl '-- I , f \ I : IW\STHEGIANTqKEATAND5TlLL J Ul THAT5ITS UPON l>iE PILLOW-HILL.^ **- Jri_> %1 _ _____ .^ THE GOLDEN STAIRCASE Poems and Verses for Children CHOSEN BY LOUEY CHISHOLM WITH PICTURES BY M. DIBDIN SPOOLER NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON : T. C. & E. C. JACK TO BEATRICE BIRNIE SINCLAIR AND PHILIP MACKWORTH CO X 00 PREFACE MY apology for venturing to rush in where even poets have trod with but a measure of success must be that compilers of existing anthologies have had, it seems to me, a more intimate acquaintance with poetry than with the boys and girls for whom their selections have been made. If you talk to a child, you will find that an insight into the working of his little mind, an appreciation of his likes and dislikes, will stand you in better stead than a profound knowledge of your subject. Write, edit or compile a children's book, and again the same holds true. The first qualification for the task is love and knowledge of the little readers. But time alone can justify the publication of The Golden Staircase. When well-worn copies are found on nurseiry or schoolroom bookshelf, then only shall I feel that I have vindicated my right to compile an anthology for children. My ultimate object is to guide boys and girls to those harvest-fields of poetry in which they may wander at large, but primarily the book has been planned with a view to their enjoyment by the way. The Golden Staircase has two hundred steps. If a child begins to climb when he is four years old, and climbs twenty steps each year, on his fourteenth birth- day he will reach the top. Behind him will descend Til viii THE GOLDEN STAIRCASE the staircase from which he has caught glimpses of the merriment and beauty and heroism beyond ; before him will stretch those Elysian fields through which his feet have been prepared to roam. Following the two hundred poems and verses of The Golden Staircase are twenty Cradle Songs, which seem to me well within the limits of a little girl's appre- ciation; and the book ends with a selection of forty Carols, Hymns and Sacred Verses which I hope will appeal to boys and girls alike. The kindness of authors or their friends, and of publishers, who have allowed me to include copyright poems, I acknowledge below, and to the many who have given this permission with amazing generosity I would tender especial thanks. I hope there may not be, inadvertently, any omission from the list. Those who have suggested or remonstrated, and those who have copied verses, are too numerous to thank in other than general terms, but I am con- strained to mention Miss Mary Steedman and the Rev. B. R. Wilson also Miss with- W. ; Amy Steedman, out whose unfailing help and interest The Golden Staircase would still have been in the making. LOUEY CHISHOLM. EDINBURGH. PREFACE ix Thanks for the inclusion of copyright poems are due to Mrs. Allingham, for The Fairies and Robin Redbreast, by William for the Allinghain ; Miss Alma-Tadema, A Blessing for Blessed, Snow- Little drops, Frost, The Robin, Girls, and A Lullaby ; Messrs. D. Appleton and Co., New York, for Robert of Lincoln, by William Cullen Bryant; for Rev. S. Baring-Gould, The Olive Tree ; Canon Beeching, for a verse J. for from A Boy's Prayer ; Mr. J. Bell, The Choice, The Lights, On the for Quay, The Ships ; Mr. Robert Bridges, Gay Robin and First Spring Morning ; Miss Abbie Farwell Brown, for A Lost Playmate ; Miss Kate for in the Bunce, The Imps Heavenly Meadow ; Messrs. Chatto and for Windus, Baby, by George Macdonald ; Mrs. Cochran (Sydney Dayre) and the Editor of St. Nicholas, for A Lesson for Mamma; Messrs. E. P. Button and Co., for The Child of Bethlehem, by Phillips Brooks; Mrs. Eden and Mrs. Ward, for Big Smith, by Juliana H. Ewing ; Messrs. C. W. Faulkner and Co., for The Cats' Tea-Party, by F. E. Weatherley; Mr. Norman Gale, for The Fairy Book, Bartholomew, and The Bad Boy ; Mr. A. H. P. Graves and the Editor of St. Nicholas, for An Irish Mr. Guthrie and Messrs. Lullaby ; Anstey (F. Anstey) Bradbury, Agnew ' ' and Co., for The Steamship Puffin ; Mrs. Hawkins, for Kind Shepherd ; Mrs. Henley, for England, my England, by W. E. Henley ; Miss Elsie of St. for a Hill and the Editor Nicholas, When Polly buys Hat ; Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, for The Enchanted Shirt, by John in J. R. Even- Hay ; A Day June and A Christmas Carol, by Lowell ; Celia tide, by Caroline Mason ; The Sandpiper, by Thaxter ; Barbara J. for Frietchie, by G. Whittier ; Mrs. Harriet Jay, Langley Lane and The Green Gnome, by Robert Buchanan ; Mr. Rudyard Kipling (Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Co., and Messrs. Scribner), for The CameVs Hump the for and Shiv and Grasshopper ; Mr. John Lane, The Rock-a-by Lady ; Little Field for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod and Boy Blue, by Eugene ; le for A Child's Evensong, from English Poems, by Richard Gallienne ; Harold and Alice ; Great, Wide, Beautiful World; The Wind Whistled Loud, and A Pedlar's Caravan, from Lilliput Lyrics, by W. B. Rands ; and for The World's Music and Jack Frost, from The Child's World, by Charles Scribner's Gabriel Setoun ; Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., and Sons, New York, for six poems from A Child's Garden of Verse, by R. L. Stevenson ; Messrs. Macmillan, for A Christmas Carol, by Christina Rossetti, and for The Loss of the Birkenhead, by Francis Doyle ; Mr. Meynell, for Ex Ore Infantium, by Francis Thompson ; Mr. Henry New- bolt, for Vitai Lampada and Admirals All, from The Island Race; Moira O'Neill, for Johneen, from Songs of the Glens of Antrim (Black- Miss for Child's Francis wood and Sons) ; Palgrave, A Prayer, by Palgrave ; Judge Parry, for verses from Katawampus ; Mrs. William Sharp, for The Bird of Christ, Hushing Song, and The Moon-Child, by Fiona Macleod ; Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for One, Two, Three, by H. C. Bunner, from The Poems of H. C. Bunner (copy- Scribner's for right, 1884, 1892, 1896, 1899, by Charles Sons) ; Wynken, Blynken and Nod and Little Boy Blue, by Eugene Field, from A Little Book of Western Verse (copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field ; published by Scribner's for and The Three Charles Sons) ; Christmas Eve, Kings of Cologne, by Eugene Field, from Second Book of Verse (copyright, 1889, by Julia Sutherland Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons); for The Rock-a-by Lady, by Eugene Field, from Love-Songs of Childhood (copy- right, 1894, by Eugene Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons); Messrs. Small, Maynard and Co., for Whitman's Captain, My Captain; Rev. C. M. Steedman, for St. Molios in Arran ; Mrs. Tynan-Hinkson, for Modereen Rue and Chanticleer; Messrs. Frederick Warne and Co., for The Jumblies, by Edward Lear; and it was by the late Mrs. Chesson (Nora Hopper) that leave was given to include The Blackbird. CONTENTS THE ROBIN ...... 1 BED IN SUMMER ...... 1 MY GARDEN ...... 2 THE LOST PLAYMATE ..... 2 THE LAMPLIGHTER ..... 3 THE STAR ....... 4 THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE .... 4 THE LITTLE FISH THAT WOULD NOT DO AS IT WAS BID . 6 WHO STOLE THE BIRD'S NEST .... 6 GOOD-NIGHT AND GOOD-MORNING .... 8 THB LITTLE MAIDEN AND THE LITTLB BIRD . 9 THE Oow ....... 10 THE Oow ....... 10 I'M A MERRY, MERRY SQUIRREL .... 11 THE OATS' TEA-PARTY ..... 12 THE BIRD'S NEST ...... 13 THE MOUSE AND THE CAKE .... 13 THE STORY OF LITTLE SUCK-A-THUMB ... 15 MY SHADOW ...... 16 KINDNESS TO ANIMALS ..... 16 FROST ..... .17 DIRTY JIM ....... 17 THE DEATH OF MASTER TOMMY ROOK . 18 HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE , . 21 MR. NOBODY ...... 21 I WOULD LIKE YOU FOR A COMRADE ... 22 THK STORY OF AUGUSTUS WHO WOULD NOT HAVE ANY SOUP 23 THE PIN .... 24 xi xii THE GOLDEN STAIRCASE FAOr EARLY RISING ...... 25 PATER'S BATHE ...... 26 HIDING ....... 26 MEDDLESOME MATTY ..... 27 Bio SMITH. .... 29 WYNKEN, BLYNKEN, AND NOJU .... 31 THE PEDLAR'S CARAVAN ..... 32 THE DREADFUL STORY ABOUT HARRIET AND THB MATCHES ...... 33 OF 35 THE COMING SPRING . .... THE LITTLE LARK ...... 36 CHOOSING A NAMR ..... 37 THE FAIRY BOOK ... 38 WHAT BECAME OF THEM .... 39 JEMIMA ....... 39 SNOWDROPS ...... 40 LITTLE GIRLS ...... 41 A BOY'S ASPIRATIONS ..... 41 LET DOGS DELIGHT TO BARK AND BITE ... 43 A CHRISTMAS VISITOR ..... 43 THE LOST DOLL ...... 44 THE JTTMBLIES ...... 45 MY KINGDOM ...... 47 THE SPIDER AND THE FLY .... 48 THE Cow AND THE Ass ..... 51 THE PET LAMB ...... 52 HAROLD AND ALICE ; OR, THH REFORMED GIANT . 55 THE MILLER OF THE DEE .... 60 THE LARK AND THE ROOK .... 61 THE LAMB ....... 62 THE BEAR'S SONG ...... 63 A GRACE FOR A CHILD . ... 64 LADY MOON ...... 64 SEVEN TIMES ONE ..... 65 TRY AGAIN ...... 66 A LESSON FOR MAMM^ 68 CONTENTS xiii FAOI J. , To H. , t ,70 A NIGHT WITH A WOLF ..... 71 HOME FOB THE HOLIDAYS ... 72 JACK FROST ...... 73 ROBERT OF LINCOLN ..... 74 THE SPARROW'S NEST ..... 77 THE GREY SQUIRRELS ..... 78 THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH .... 80 QUEEN MAS 4 . , . 82 THE CAMEL'S HUMP , , , . 83 THE BAD BOY . ... , ,84 THE FAIRIES ...*,. 86 THE SLUGGARD ...... 87 THE WIND IN A FROLIC , 88 ROBIN REDBREAST , , . 90 THE SEA-GULL . 91 MY HEART 's IN THE HIGHLANDS .... 93 WHEN POLLY BUYS A HAT . ... 94 THE WORLD'S . Music , ... 95 ONE, Two, THREE . 97 THE BABES IN THE WOOD > , , , 98 A BOY'S SONG .....