Very dark the autumn sky,
Dark the clouds that hurried by;
Very rough the autumn breeze
Shouting rudely to the trees.
Listening, frightened, pale, and cold,
Through the withered leaves and mold
Peered a violet all in dread—
“Where...
“oh dear! is Summer over?”
I heard a rosebud moan,
When first her eyes she opened,
And found she was alone.
“Oh, why did Summer leave me,
Little me, belated?
Where are the other roses?
I think they might have waited.”
...
Under a toadstool
Crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain,
To shelter himself.
Under the toadstool,
Sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse
All in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf,
Frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away...
This, children, is the famed Mon-goos.
He has an ap-pe-tite ab-struse:
Strange to re-late, this crea-ture takes
A cu-ri-ous joy in eat-ing snakes—
All kinds—though, it must be con-fessed,
He likes the poi-son-ous ones the best.
From him we learn...
Under a toadstool
Crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain,
To shelter himself.
Under the toadstool,
Sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse
All in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf,
Frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away...
Once hoary Winter chanced—alas!
Alas! hys waye mistaking—
A leafless apple-tree to pass
Where Spring lay dreaming. “Fie, ye lass!
Ye lass had best he waking,”
Quoth he, and shook hys robe, and, lo!
Lo! forth didde flye a cloud of snowe.
...
Very dark the autumn sky,
Dark the clouds that hurried by;
Very rough the autumn breeze
Shouting rudely to the trees.
Listening, frightened, pale, and cold,
Through the withered leaves and mould
Peered a violet all in dread—
“...
If this little world to-night
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing, headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things—
Ants, philosophers,...
