Page:Essays in idleness.djvu/71

 Rh trivial verses out of new books and magazines for study and recitation. She answered, Never. They turned instinctively to the same old favorites she had been listening to so long; to the same familiar poems that their fathers and mothers had probably studied and recited before them. "Hohenlinden," "Glenara," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," "Young Lochinvar," "Rosabelle," "To Lucasta, on going to the Wars," the lullaby from "The Princess," "Lady Clara Vere de Vere," "Annabel Lee," Longfellow's translation of "The Castle by the Sea," and "The Skeleton in Armor,"—these are the themes of which children never weary; these are the songs that are sung forever in their secret Paradise of Delights. The little volumes containing such tried and proven friends grow shabby with much handling; and I have seen them marked all over with mysterious crosses and dots and stars, each of which denoted the exact degree of affection which the child bore to the poem thus honored and approved. I can fancy Mr. Lang's "Blue Poetry Book" fairly covered with such badges of distinction; for never before has any selection of poems appealed so clearly and insistently to