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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. T. Trowbridge, "Evening at
the Farm" and "Midwinter"; Bayard Taylor, "A Night With a Wolf" and "The
Song of the Camp"; J. G. Whittier, "The Corn Song," "The Barefoot Boy,"
"Barbara Frietchie," extracts from "Snow-Bound," "Song of the <DW64>
Boatman," and "The Pipes at Lucknow"; W. D. Howells, "In August"; J. G.
Saxe, "Solomon and the Bees."




CONTENTS


A CHANTED CALENDAR                                           Page

  Daybreak. By _Percy Bysshe Shelley_                           1
  Morning. By _John Keats_                                      1
  A Morning Song. By _William Shakespeare_                      2
  Evening in Paradise. By _John Milton_                         2
  Evening Song. By _John Fletcher_                              3
  Night. By _Robert Southey_                                    4
  A Fine Day. By _Michael Drayton_                              5
  The Seasons. By _Edmund Spenser_                              5
  The Eternal Spring. By _John Milton_                          5
  March. By _William Cullen Bryant_                             6
  Spring. By _Thomas Carew_                                     7
  Song to April. By _William Watson_                            7
  April in England. By _Robert Browning_                        8
  April and May. By _Ralph Waldo Emerson_                       9
  May. By _Edmund Spenser_                                      9
  Song on May Morning. By _John Milton_                        10
  Summer. By _Edmund Spenser_                                  10
  June Weather. By _James Russell Lowell_                      11
  July. By _Susan Hartley Swett_                               13
  August. By _Edmund Spenser_                                  14
  In August. By _William Dean Howells_                         14
  Autumn. By _Edmund Spenser_                                  15
  Sweet September. By _George Arnold_                          15
  Autumn's Processional. By _Dinah M. Mulock_                  16
  October's Bright Blue Weather. By _H. H._                    16
  Maple Leaves. By _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_                     17
  Down to Sleep. By _H. H._                                    18
  Winter. By _Edmund Spenser_                                  19
  When Icicles Hang by the Wall. By _William Shakespeare_      19
  A Winter Morning. By _James Russell Lowell_                  20
  The Snow Storm. By _Ralph Waldo Emerson_                     21
  Old Winter. By _Thomas Noel_                                 22
  Midwinter. By _John Townsend Trowbridge_                     23
  Dirge for the Year. By _Percy Bysshe Shelley_                25


THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL

  The World Beautiful. By _John Milton_                        27
  The Harvest Moon. By _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_            27
  The Cloud. By _Percy Bysshe Shelley_                         28
  Before the Rain. By _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_                  31
  Rain in Summer. By _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_              32
  Invocation to Rain in Summer. By _William C. Bennett_        34
  The Latter Rain. By _Jones Very_                             35
  The Wind. By _Robert Louis Stevenson_                        35
  Ode to the Northeast Wind. By _Charles Kingsley_             36
  The Windy Night. By _Thomas Buchanan Read_                   39
  The Brook. By _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_                        40
  The Brook in Winter. By _James Russell Lowell_               42
  Clear and Cool. By _Charles Kingsley_                        44
  Minnows. By _John Keats_                                     45
  Snow-Bound (Extracts). By _John G. Whittier_                 46
  Highland Cattle. By _Dinah M. Mulock_                        50
  A Scene in Paradise. By _John Milton_                        52
  The Tiger. By _William Blake_                                53
  The Spacious Firmament on High. By _Joseph Addison_          54


GREEN THINGS GROWING

  Green Things Growing. By _Dinah M. Mulock_                   57
  The Sigh of Silence. By _John Keats_                         58
  Under the Greenwood Tree. By _William Shakespeare_           59
  The Planting of the Apple Tree. By _William Cullen Bryant_   59
  The Apple Orchard in the Spring. By _William Martin_         63
  Mine Host of "The Golden Apple." By _Thomas Westwood_        64
  The Tree. By _Jones Very_                                    65
  A Young Fir-Wood. By _Dante G. Rossetti_                     65
  The Snowing of the Pines. By _Thomas W. Higginson_           66
  The Procession of the Flowers. By _Sydney Dobell_            67
  Sweet Peas. By _John Keats_                                  68
  A Snowdrop. By _Harriet Prescott Spofford_                   69
  Almond Blossom. By _Sir Edwin Arnold_                        69
  Wild Rose. By _William Allingham_                            70
  Tiger-Lilies. By _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_                     71
  To the Fringed Gentian. By _William Cullen Bryant_           72
  To a Mountain Daisy. By _Robert Burns_                       73
  Bind-Weed. By _Susan Coolidge_                               74
  The Rhodora. By _Ralph Waldo Emerson_                        76
  A Song of Clover. By "_Saxe Holm_"                           76
  To the Dandelion (Extract). By _James Russell Lowell_        77
  To Daffodils. By _Robert Herrick_                            78
  The Daffodils. By _William Wordsworth_                       79
  The White Anemone. By _Owen Meredith_                        80
  The Grass. By _Emily Dickinson_                              81
  The Corn-Song. By _John G. Whittier_                         82
  Columbia's Emblem. By _Edna Dean Proctor_                    84
  Scythe Song. By _Andrew Lang_                                86
  Time to Go. By _Susan Coolidge_                              86
  The Death of the Flowers. By _William Cullen Bryant_         88
  Autumn's Mirth. By _Samuel Minturn Peck_                     90


ON THE WING

  Sing On, Blithe Bird. By _William Motherwell_                93
  To a Skylark. By _Percy Bysshe Shelley_                      94
  Sir