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  THE LAND OF SONG

  BOOK II.

  _FOR LOWER GRAMMAR GRADES_


  SELECTED BY
  KATHARINE H. SHUTE


  EDITED BY
  LARKIN DUNTON, LL.D.
  HEAD MASTER OF THE BOSTON NORMAL SCHOOL


  [Illustration]


  SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY
  NEW YORK      BOSTON      CHICAGO
  1899



  COPYRIGHT, 1899,
  BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY.

  BOSTON:
  C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS.
  Plimpton Press
  H. M. PLIMPTON & CO., PRINTERS & BINDERS,
  NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.




_COMPILERS' PREFACE._


The inestimable value of literature in supplying healthful recreation,
in opening the mind to larger views of life, and in creating ideals that
shall mold the spiritual nature, is conceded now by every one who has
intelligently considered the problems of education. But the basis upon
which literature shall be selected and arranged is still a matter of
discussion.

Chronology, race-correspondence, correlation, and ethical training
should all be recognized incidentally; but the main purpose of the
teacher of literature is to send children on into life with a genuine
love for good reading. To accomplish this, three things should be true
of the reading offered: first, it should be _literature_; second, it
should be literature of some scope, not merely some small phase of
literature, such as the fables or the poetry of one of the less eminent
poets; and third, it should appeal to children's natural interests.
Children's interests, varied as they seem, center in the marvelous and
the preternatural; in the natural world; and in human life, especially
child life and the romantic and heroic aspects of mature life. In the
selections made for each grade, we have recognized these different
interests.

To grade poetry perfectly for different ages is an impossibility; much
of the greatest verse is for all ages--that is one reason why it _is_
great. A child of five will lisp the numbers of Horatius with delight;
and Scott's _Lullaby of an Infant Chief_, with its romantic color and
its exquisite human tenderness, is dear to childhood, to manhood, and to
old age. But the Land of Song is a great undiscovered country to the
little child; by some road or other he must find his way into it; and
these volumes simply attempt to point out a path through which he may be
led into its happy fields.

Our earnest thanks are due to the following publishers for permission
to use copyrighted poems: to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for poems by
Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Aldrich, Bayard Taylor,
James T. Fields, Phoebe Cary, Lucy Larcom, Celia Thaxter, and Sarah Orne
Jewett; to D. Appleton & Co. for a large number of Bryant's poems; to
Charles Scribner's Sons for two poems by Stevenson, from _Underwoods_,
and _A Child's Garden of Verse_; to J. B. Lippincott & Co. for two poems
by Thomas Buchanan Read; and to Henry T. Coates & Co. for a poem by
Charles Fenno Hoffman.

The present volume is intended for the fourth, fifth, and sixth school
years, or lower grammar grades. It is the second of three books prepared
for use in the grades below the high school. As no collection of this
size can supply as much poetry as may be used to advantage, and as many
desirable poems by American writers have necessarily been omitted, we
have noted at the end of this volume lists of poems which it would be
well to add to the material given here, that our children may realize
the scope and beauty of the poetry of their own