Beadle's Dime National Speaker, Embodying Gems of Oratory and Wit, Particularly Adapted to American Schools and Firesides

Upon the grass should say:
"What can a little dew-drop do?
I'd better roll away;"
The blade on which it rested,
Before the day was done,
Without a drop to moisten it,
Would wither in the sun.

Suppose the little breezes,
Upon a summer's day,
Should think themselves too small to cool
The traveler on his way;
Who would not miss the smallest
And softest ones that blow,
And think they made a great mistake
If they were talking so?

How many deeds of kindness
A little child may do,
Although it has so little strength,
And little wisdom, too!
It wants a loving spirit
Much more than strength, to prove
How many things a child may do
For others by his love.

THE GATES OF SLEEP. – Dr. John Henry

There are two gates of Sleep, the poet says:
Of polished ivory one, of horn the other;
But I, besides these gates, to blessed Sleep
Three other gates have found which thus I count:
First the star-spangled arch of deep midnight,
When labor ceases, every sound is hush'd,
And Nature, drowsy, nods upon her throne.
Pale-visaged Specters round this gate keep watch,
And Fears and Horrors vain, and beyond these
Rest, balmy Sweat, and dim Forgetfulness,
Relieved, at dawn of day, by buoyant Hope,
Fresh Strength and ruddy Health and calm Composure
And daring Enterprise and Self-reliance.

The second gate is wreathed, sideposts and lintel,
With odorous trailing hop, and poppy-stalks;
The shadowy gateway paved with poppy-heads,
And there, all day and night, keeps watch sick Fancy
Haggard and trembling, and Delirium wild,
And Impotence with drunken glistening eye,
And Idiocy, and, in the background, Death.

The third gate is of lead, and there sits, ever
Humming her tedious tune, Monotony,
Tired of herself; about her on the ground
Sermons and psalms and hymns lie numerous strew'd,
To the same import all, and all almost
In the same words varied in form and order
To cheat, if possible, the weary sense,
And different seem, where difference is none.
At th' opposite doorpost, on her knees, Routine
Keeps turning over still the well-thumbed leaves
Of the same prayer-book, reading prayers, not praying;
Behind them waiting stand Conformity
And Uniformity, Oneness of faith,
Oneness of laws and customs, arts and manners,
And Self-development's unrelenting foe,
Centralization; and behind these still,
Far in the portal's deepest gloom ensconced,
A perfect, unimprovable Paradise
Of mere, blank naught, unchangeable forever —
These, as I count them, are the Gates of Sleep.

THE BUGLE. – Tennyson

The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shines across the lake,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, hark! oh, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going;
Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and spar,
The horns of Elf-land faintly blowing.
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, love, they die in yon rich sky;
They faint on field, or hill, or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

A HOODISH GEM

The little snarling, caroling "babies,"
That break our nightly rest,
Should be packed off to "Baby" – lon,
To "Lapland," or to "Brest."