Epigraph
A little golden head close to my knee,
Sweet eyes of tender, gentianella blue
Fixed upon mine, a little coaxing voice,—
Only we two.
“Tell it again!” Insatiate demand!
And like a toiling spider where I sat,
I wove and spun the many-colored webs
Of this and that.
Of Dotty Pringle sweeping out her hall;
Of Greedy Bear; of Santa Claus the good;
And how the little children met the Months
Within the wood.
“Tell it again!” and though the sand-man came,
Dropping his drowsy grains in each blue eye,
“Tell it again! oh, just once more!” was still
The sleepy cry.
My spring-time violet! early snatched away
To fairer gardens all unknown to me,—
Gardens of whose invisible, guarded gates
I have no key,—
I weave my fancies now for other ears,—
Thy sister-blossom’s, who beside me sits,
Rosy, imperative, and quick to mark
My lagging wits.
But still the stories bear thy name, are thine,
Part of the sunshine of thy brief, sweet day,
Though in her little warm and living hands
This book I lay.