Mother Goose for Grown Folks. Whitney Adeline Dutton Train

the throng pours upward from the earth

      To Heaven's eternal gates.

      In shreds of torn affection,

      In passion-rended rags;

      While scarcely at the portal

      The great procession flags;

      For the pillared doors of glory

      On their hinges hang awide;

      Where each asking soul may enter,

      And at last be satisfied!

      But a cold, calm shade arriveth,

      In self-complacent trim,—

      And Peter riseth up to see

      Especially to him.

      "Good morrow, saint! I'm going in

      To take a stroll, you know;

      Not that I want for anything,—

      But just to see the show!"

      "Hold!" thunders out the warden,

      "Be pleased to pause a bit!

      For seats celestial, let me say,

      You 're not apparelled fit:

      Yonder 's the brazen door that leads

      Spectators to the pit!

      Whatever may be thought on earth,

      We've other rules in heaven;

      And only poverty confessed

      Finds free admittance given!"

      BLACKBIRDS

      "Sing a song o' sixpence, a pocket full of rye;

      Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie:

      When the pie was opened, they all began to sing,

      And was n't this a dainty dish to set before the king?

      The king was in his counting-house, counting out his money;

      The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey;

      The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,

      And along came a blackbird, and nipt off her nose!"

      It doesn't take a conjurer to see

      The sort of curious pasty this might be;

      A flock of flying rumors, caught alive,

      And housed, like swarming bees within a

      hive,—

      Instead of what were far more wisely

      done,

      Having their worthless necks wrung, every

      one;—

      And so a dish of dainty gossip making,

      Smooth covered with a show of secrecy,

      That one but takes the pleasant pains of

      breaking,

      And out the wide-mouthed knaves pop,

      eagerly.

      Blackbirds, indeed! Each chattering on-

      dit

      Comes forth, full feathered, black as black

      can be;

      With quivering throats, all tremulous to

      sing,

      And please, forsooth, some little social

      king;

      Whose reign may last as long as he is able

      To call his court around a dinner-table.