The Star Child

'Weet! weet! weet!' twittered the green Linnets, 'the old Earth is dead and they have laid her out in her white shroud.'

'The Earth is going to be married, and this is her bridal dress,' whispered the Turtle-doves to each other. Their little pink feet were quite frost-bitten, but they felt that it was their duty to take a romantic view of the situation.

'Nonsense!' growled the Wolf. 'I tell you that it is all the fault of the Government, and if you don't believe me I shall eat you.' The Wolf had a thoroughly practical mind, and was never at a loss for a good argument.

'Well, for my own part,' said the Woodpecker, who was a born philosopher, 'I don't care an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing is so, it is so, and at present it is terribly cold.'

'the old Earth is dead and they have laid her out in her white shroud.'

'The Earth is going to be married, and this is her bridal dress,

Into a house where a heart is hard cometh there not always a bitter wind?'

And the man answered nothing, but stirred not from the threshold.

But he answered him: 'Nay, for the cloak is neither mine nor thine, but the child's only,'

Snow is cruel to those who sleep in her arms

This is a bitter ending to our hope, nor have we any good fortune, for what doth a child profit to a man

much is given to some, and little is given to others. Injustice has parcelled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow.

flower of silver, and the Moon like a flower of gold

'I don't care an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing is so, it is so, and at present it is terribly cold.'