For there were pictures many, of beast, and fish, and bird; And _thou_ wert there, thou good Reindeer, of whom so much I’d heard. And that great heavy ancient book was such a prize to me! It told me of the monstrous whale, and the small good honey-bee; It told me of the elephant, the tiger, the gazelle, Of the vast luxuriant jungles, and the lone, bright desert well; Of humming-birds that sip the dew of flowers as they fly, Of prairies wild, and wide, and green; of snowy mountains high: I read there of the Northern sea, where iceberg islands float, And crush the great three-masted ship, as ’twere a cockle-boat; I read about the harmless seals, and the shaggy Polar bear, And the mighty troops of hungry wolves that roam and riot there. I read of Nature’s glorious works, and wondering went on, And found before me pleasures, whose round will ne’er be done. And in my good old-fashioned book I read of herb and tree, That were food for man, and beast and bird, and for the honey-bee. I read of grove-like banyans, of cedars broad and tall, Of the lofty towering palm, and the Moss and lichen small. And then I found how wondrously the poor Reindeer was fed, When over all his frozen land deep winter’s snow lay spread; How GOD had bid the barren ground produce this strange small thing, On which whole countless herds of deer are ever pasturing: How, in the woods of scattered pine abundantly it grows, And clothes the earth for many a mile beneath the trackless snows; How the sagacious Reindeer delves, and scents his onward way, Till he reaches his scant mossy food, that doth his toil repay. Oh! see him with his master’s sledge! How swift they glide along, Like a bird, or a fairy car I’ve read of, in some quaint old song. Away! o’er the boundless snowy waste, so glittering and bright: Away!--through the dark pine forest, as gloomy as the night: Away o’er the frozen lake, the river, and the fen, Away! Away!--Ye have winsome steeds, ye little Lapland men! Ay, winsome steeds in sooth, with their antlers branched and high; So sure of foot, and swift of pace, they truly seem to fly. Ye need no palace-stables, no saucy pampered grooms, To stretch your cracking purse-strings, and strut in liveried plumes; No heavy half-year’s bills, for oats, beans, straw, and hay. The forest yields them lodgment, and food, where’er they stray. And thus we find, in every clime, things beautiful and fair, Each fitted to fulfil its task of use and beauty there; And I remember thinking so, when, a little child, I read The history of the good Reindeer, and the Moss whereon they fed. _Louisa A. Twamley._ * * * * *