Culled the bright flowers, and gently touched the spray;
But now wild creatures in their savage joy
Tread down the flowers and the plants destroy.

"By night no torches in the windows gleam;
By day no women in their beauty beam;
The smoke has ceased--the spider there has spread
His snares in safety--and all else is dead."

"Indeed, it is a 'gem,'" said Mary, after slowly reading aloud parts
of several stanzas.

"Yes," replied her Aunt, "Professor Schmidt tells me the poem was
written by Kalidasa (the Shakespeare of Hindu literature), and was
written 1800 years before Goldsmith gave us his immortal work, 'The
Deserted Village.'"

"I like the poem, 'Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel,'" said Mary, "and I
think this true by Henry Ward Beecher:"

"'Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues,
God made a million spears of grass where He made one tree;
The earth is fringed and carpeted not with forests but with grasses,
Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities,
And you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.'

"This is a favorite little poem of mine, Aunt Sarah. I'll just write
it on this blank page in your book."

There's a little splash of sunshine and a little spot of shade,