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A YEAR'S WINDFALLS Who comes dancing over the snow, His soft little feet all bare and rosy? Open the door, though the wild winds blow, Take the child in and make him cosy.Take him in and hold him dear,He is the wonderful glad New Year.Dinah M. Mulock. Marjorie's Almanac Robins in the tree-top,Blossoms in the grass,Green things a-growingEverywhere you pass;Sudden little breezes,Showers of... more...

Drake's Drum Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,  (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,  An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe.Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships,  Wi' sailor lads a-dancing' heel-an'-toe,An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the... more...

Rhagymadrodd. Ganwyd John Blackwell (Alun) mewn bwthyn ger y Wyddgrug yn 1797.  Un o Langwm oedd ei fam—gwraig ddarbodus a meddylgar; a dilynai ei mab hi i’r seiat a’r Ysgol Sul, gan hynodi ei hun fel dysgwr adnodau ac adroddwr emynau.  Mwnwr call, dwys, distaw, oedd ei dad, a pheth gwaed Seisnig ynddo; cydymdeimlai yntau â’i fachgen. Yn unarddeg oed, heb addysg ysgol ond yn awyddus am... more...

Preface The Romantic poets rediscovered a pastoral and Biblical dream: that a child was the most innocent and the wisest of us all. Wordsworth hailed him as "Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!" And in the next generation Victorian novelists took that dream seriously enough to make children the heroes and heroines of their most searching fictions. There had been no "children's literature"... more...

DEDICATION TO MY MOTHER Love that holds life and death in fee,Deep as the clear unsounded seaAnd sweet as life or death can be,Lays here my hope, my heart, and meBefore you, silent, in a song.Since the old wild tale, made new, found grace,When half sung through, before your face,It needs must live a springtide space,While April suns grow strong. March 24, 1896. In hawthorn-time the heart grows... more...

SAMUEL DANIEL Daniel's sonnet series has been by many regarded as the prototype of Shakespeare's. It is true that several of Daniel's themes are repeated in the cycle composed by the greater poet. The ideas of immortality in verse, the transitoriness of beauty, the assurances of truth, the humility and the woes of the lover, the pain of separation and the comfort of night thoughts, shape... more...

ALUN. John Blackwell (Alun), was born of very poor parents at Mold in 1797.  Beginning life as a shoe-maker, his successes at the Eisteddfods of Ruthin and Mold in 1823 attracted the attention of the gentry of the neighbourhood, and a fund was formed to send him to the University.  He took his degree from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1828, and died rector of Manordeifi 1840.  His works were published... more...

THE YARN OF THE "NANCY BELL."'Twas on the shores that round our coastFrom Deal to Ramsgate span,That I found alone, on a piece of stone,An elderly naval man.His hair was weedy, his beard was long,And weedy and long was he,And I heard this wight on the shore recite,In a singular minor key:"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of theNancybrig,And a bo'sun tight, and a... more...

It is exceedingly difficult to settle the exact place of, as well as to compute the varied influences wielded by, a great original genius. Every such mind borrows so much from his age and from the past, as well as communicates so much from his own native stores, that it is difficult to determine whether he be more the creature or the creator of his period. But, ere determining the influence exerted by... more...

INTRODUCTION. The literature of a people always reflects their character.  You may discover in the prose and poetry of a nation its social condition, and in their different phases its political progress.  The age of Homer was the heroic, in which the Greeks excelled in martial exploits; that of Virgil found the Romans an intellectual and gallant race; the genius of Chaucer, Spencer and Sidney... more...