Chapter I: HEARD a violin one day

It sounded like the Spring;
Like woolly lambs at play,
Like baby birds that sing
In snatches, when they're learning how.
I know the one who played
Could see pink blossoms on a bough,
Where children came beneath its shade
To make white clover in a crown.
Then while they laughed there in the grass,
Soft petals fluttered down;
They hushed and saw some angels pass,
With friendly eyes that smile--
The kind that I have often seen
When mother sings awhile,
Just as I go to sleep and dream.

I held my breath and then there rose
The last sweet note so high.
I felt as when the sunshine goes--
I could not help but cry.

A COMPROMISE

WHEN I have done a Something Wrong,
I feel ashamed to kneel and pray.
But then the dark-time lasts so long,
And God seems--oh, so far away!--
That when the lights are out awhile,
I clamber out of bed once more
And pour my pennies in a pile.
... I listen at the door,
And then I get upon my knees,
And whisper just for God to hear,
To ask him, oh, just once more, _please_,
Will he forgive and come back near,
If I will make a promise _quick_
To give my pennies to the sick?

A RAINY DAY

WHEN I woke up and saw the rain
In blurs upon the window-pane,
I said I hated such a day,
Because I couldn't run and play,
Out in the sunshine and the grass.
It's queer how such a day can pass
So soon, before you know it 'most,
And while I eat my milk and toast,
Before I go to bed, I think
I've never had a day so _pink_.
Without the sun to make the shine,
This whole day long has been just mine
And Mother's, in the fireplace glow.--
Because it rained, it made it so.

AN APPEAL TO SCIENCE