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THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

NEW YEAR’S GIFTS.

By MARY ROWLES.

“Oh, bonny New Year, pray tell me true,

While your birthday bells are ringing,

What beautiful work have you come to do?

How much of joy shall we find in you?

In your wallet of blessings, all fresh and new,

What fairy gifts are you bringing?”

“For field and garden, asleep in the cold,

A wonderful store I carry,

Fresh robes for the snowdrops, first to unfold,

Pink ruffs for the daisies, fair to behold,

New cups for the crocuses, yellow as gold,

Wherein shall the sunbeams tarry.

“The woods I will clothe in vestures bright,

Whose work shall be mine own doing,

Anemones there shall be found in white,

And bluebells ring by day and by night,

And girlies warble with new delight,

Old songs of loving and wooing!”

“But what do you bring, oh blithe New Year,

To human sorrow and sadness?”

“For shrouded lives, an horizon clear,

For hearts that are desolate, friendship dear,

For midnight sufferers, starlight cheer,

And morrows of peace and gladness.

“To those who have climbed when barely shod,

New guerdons for brave end

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