My little girl is nested
  Within her tiny bed,
With amber ringlets crested
  Around her dainty head;
She lies so calm and stilly,
  She breathes so soft and low,
She calls to mind a lily
  Half-hidden in the snow.

A weary little...

Through the fierce fever I nursed him, and then he said
I was the woman—I!—that he would wed;
He sent a boat with men for his own white priest,
And he gave my father horses, and made a feast.
I am his wife: if he has forgotten me,
I will not live for...

Whenever a little child is born,
All night a soft wind rocks the corn;
One more buttercup wakes to the morn,
    Somewhere, somewhere.

One more rosebud shy will unfold,
One more grass-blade push through the mold,
One more bird-song the air will...

He was six years old, just six that day,
And I saw he had something important to say
As he held in his hand a broken toy.
He looked in my face for an instant, and then
He said, with a sigh, and a downcast eye,
“If I could live my life over again,
I...

A million little diamonds
Twinkled on the trees;
And all the little maidens said:
“A jewel, if you please!”
But while they held their hands outstretched,
To catch the diamonds gay,
A million little sunbeams came,
And stole them all away....

To put new shingles on old roofs;
  To give old women wadded skirts;
To treat premonitory coughs
  With seasonable flannel shirts;
To soothe the stings of poverty
  And keep the jackal from the door,—
These are the works that occupy
  The...

A little way to walk with you, my own—
    Only a little way,
Then one of us must weep and walk alone
    Until God’s day.

A little way! It is so sweet to live
    Together, that I know
Life would not have one withered rose to give
    If...

My little neighbor’s table ’s set,
  And slyly he comes down the tree,
His feet firm in each tiny fret
  The bark has fashioned cunningly.

He pauses on a favorite knot;
  Beneath the oak his feast is spread;
He asks no friend to share his lot,...

What fragrant-footed comer
  Is stepping o’er my head?
Behold, my queen! the Summer!
  Who deems her warriors dead.
Now rise, ye knights of many fights,
  From out your sleep profound!
Make sharp your spears, my gallant peers,
  And prick...

A simple-hearted child was He,
  And He was nothing more;
In summer days, like you and me,
  He played about the door,
Or gathered, where the father toiled.
  The shavings from the floor.

Sometimes He lay upon the grass,
  The same as you...