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McCLURE'S LIBRARY OF CHILDREN'S CLASSICS

EDITED BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH

THE POSY RING
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR CHILDREN

PINAFORE PALACE
A BOOK OF RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY

_Library of Fairy Literature_

THE FAIRY RING

MAGIC CASEMENTS A SECOND FAIRY BOOK

OTHER VOLUMES TO FOLLOW

_Send to the publishers for Complete Descriptive Catalogue_




GOLDEN NUMBERS

A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH

CHOSEN AND CLASSIFIED BY

_Kate Douglas Wiggin_

AND

_Nora Archibald Smith_

WITH INTRODUCTION AND INTERLEAVES BY

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

[Illustration]

    "_To add to golden numbers, golden numbers._"

                        THOMAS DEKKER.

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1909


_Copyright, 1902, by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

Published, October, 1902, N



GOLDEN NUMBERS


    _Then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice._

                        HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

      _Hark! the numbers soft and clear_
      _Gently steal upon the ear;_
      _Now louder, and yet louder rise,_
      _And fill with spreading sounds the skies;_
    _Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,_
    _In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats._

                        ALEXANDER POPE.




A NOTE


We are indebted to the following firms for permission to use poems
mentioned:

Frederick Warne & Co., for poems of George Herbert and Reginald Heber;
Small, Maynard & Co., for two poems by Walt Whitman, and "The
Tax-Gatherer," by John B. Tabb; George Routledge & Son, for "Sir Lark
and King Sun," George Macdonald; Longmans, Green & Co., for Andrew
Lang's "Scythe Song"; Lee & Shepard, for "A Christmas Hymn," "Alfred
Dommett," and "Minstrels and Maids," William Morris; J. B. Lippincott
Co., for three poems by Thomas Buchanan Read; John Lane, for "The
Forsaken Merman," Matthew Arnold, and "Song to April," William Watson;
"The Skylark," Frederick Tennyson; E. P. Dutton & Co., for "O Little
Town of Bethlehem," Phillips Brooks; Dana, Estes & Co., for "July," by
Susan Hartley Swett; Little, Brown & Co., for poems of Christina G.
Rossetti, and for the three poems, "The Grass," "The Bee," and
"Chartless" by Emily Dickinson; D. Appleton & Co., publishers of
Bryant's Complete Poetical Works, for "March," "Planting of the Apple
Tree," "To the Fringed Gentian," "Death of Flowers," "To a Waterfowl,"
and "The Twenty-second of December"; Charles Scribner's Sons, for "The
Wind" and "A Visit from the Sea," both taken from "A Child's Garden of
Verses"; "The Angler's Reveille," from "The Toiling of Felix"; "Dear
Land of All My Love," from "Poems of Sidney Lanier," and "The Three
Kings," from "With Trumpet and Drum," by Eugene Field; The Churchman,
for "Tacking Ship Off Shore," by Walter Mitchell; The Whitaker-Ray Co.,
for "Columbus" and "Crossing the Plains," from The Complete Poetical
Works of Joaquin Miller; The Macmillan Co., for "At Gibraltar," from
"North Shore Watch and Other Poems," by George Edward Woodberry.

The following poems are used by permission of, and by special
arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers:

T. B. Aldrich, "A Turkish Legend," "Before the Rain," "Maple Leaves,"
and "Tiger Lilies"; Christopher P. Cranch, "The Bobolinks"; Alice Cary,
"The Gray Swan"; Margaret Deland, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
by Night"; Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Forbearance," "The Humble-Bee," "Duty,"
"The Rhodora," "Concord Hymn," "The Snow Storm," and Ode Sung in the
Town Hall, Concord; James T. Fields, "Song of the Turtle and the
Flamingo"; Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered
Nautilus"; John Hay, "The Enchanted Shirt"; Julia Ward Howe, "Battle
Hymn of the Republic"; Bret Harte, "The Reveille" and "A Greyport
Legend"; T. W. Higginson, "The Snowing of the Pines"; H. W. Longfellow,
"The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Psalm of Life," "Home Song," "The
Three Kings," and "The Harvest Moon"; James Russell Lowell,
"Washington," extracts from "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "The
Fatherland," "To the Dandelion," "The Singing Leaves," and "Stanzas on
Freedom"; Lucy Larcom, "Hannah Binding Shoes"; Edna Dean Proctor,
"Columbia's Emblem"; T. W. Parsons, "Dirge for One Who Fell in Battle";
E. C. Stedman, "The Flight of the Birds" and "Going A-Nutting"; E. R.
Sill, "Opportunity"; W. W. Story, "The English Language"; Celia
Thaxter, "The Sandpiper" and "Nikolina"; J