"Thou makest the earth soft with show-ers: Thou bless-est the spring-ing
there-of."--PSALM lxv. 10.
When A-pril skies be-gin to frown,
And the cold rain comes pelt-ing down,
We must not grum-ble nor com-plain,
Nor i-dly say, we hate the rain.
God sends the rain; the dust-y ground
It soft-ens in the fields a-round;
The mois-ture ev-e-ry plant re-ceives,
And springs a-fresh in flow-ers and leaves.
Should God for-bid the show-ers to fall,
Nor send us any rain at all,
The ground would all grow hard and dry,
And ev-e-ry liv-ing plant would die.
All things would starve and per-ish then--
No food for birds, nor beasts, nor men;
Then do not mur-mur, nor com-plain,
God, in His good-ness, sends the rain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: "SNAP, BE GOOD!"]
"SNAP, BE GOOD!"
"Dear lit-tle Snap, you fun-ny pup,
I love to see you beg,
So cle-ver-ly do you sit up
And bend each slen-der leg,
Drop-ping the paw;
And raise your ears a-bove your head,
Look-ing so very wise;
You seem to know I have some bread;
And then, such bright green eyes
I never saw.
"Your shag-gy coat is long and rough,
Your tail is rough-er still;
Now, Snap, I think you've had e-nough,
And more would make you ill--
In-deed it would.
But sis-ter Lot-ty has some cake,
And so if you will sit
Quite still and good, till I say 'Take!'
Then you shall have a bit;
So, Snap, be good!"