McCLURE'S LIBRARY OF CHILDREN'S CLASSICS
EDITED BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH
GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH
THE POSY RING
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR CHILDREN
PINAFORE PALACE
A BOOK OF RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY
Library of Fairy Literature
THE FAIRY RING
MAGIC CASEMENTS A SECOND FAIRY BOOK
OTHER VOLUMES TO FOLLOW
Send to the publishers for Complete Descriptive Catalogue
GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH
CHOSEN AND CLASSIFIED BY
Kate Douglas Wiggin
AND
Nora Archibald Smith
WITH INTRODUCTION AND INTERLEAVES BY
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1909
Copyright, 1902, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, October, 1902, N
GOLDEN NUMBERS
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats.
A NOTE
We are indebted to the following firms for permission to use poems mentioned:
Frederick Warne & Co., for poems of George Herbert and Reginald Heber; Small, Maynard & Co., for two poems by Walt Whitman, and "The Tax-Gatherer," by John B. Tabb; George Routledge & Son, for "Sir Lark and King Sun," George Macdonald; Longmans, Green & Co., for Andrew Lang's "Scythe Song"; Lee & Shepard, for "A Christmas Hymn," "Alfred Dommett," and "Minstrels and Maids," William Morris; J. B. Lippincott Co., for three poems by Thomas Buchanan Read; John Lane, for "The Forsaken Merman," Matthew Arnold, and "Song to April," William Watson; "The Skylark," Frederick Tennyson; E. P. Dutton & Co., for "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Phillips Brooks; Dana, Estes & Co., for "July," by Susan Hartley Swett; Little, Brown & Co., for poems of Christina G. Rossetti, and for the three poems, "The Grass," "The Bee," and "Chartless" by Emily Dickinson; D. Appleton & Co., publishers of Bryant's Complete Poetical Works, for "March," "Planting of the Apple Tree," "To the Fringed Gentian," "Death of Flowers," "To a Waterfowl," and "The Twenty-second of December"; Charles Scribner's Sons, for "The Wind" and "A Visit from the Sea," both taken from "A Child's Garden of Verses"; "The Angler's Reveille," from "The Toiling of Felix"; "Dear Land of All My Love," from "Poems of Sidney Lanier," and "The Three Kings," from "With Trumpet and Drum," by Eugene Field; The Churchman, for "Tacking Ship Off Shore," by Walter Mitchell; The Whitaker-Ray Co., for "Columbus" and "Crossing the Plains," from The
The following poems are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers:
T. B. Aldrich, "A Turkish Legend," "Before the Rain," "Maple Leaves," and "Tiger Lilies"; Christopher P. Cranch, "The Bobolinks"; Alice Cary, "The Gray Swan"; Margaret Deland, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night"; Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Forbearance," "The Humble-Bee," "Duty," "The Rhodora," "Concord Hymn," "The Snow Storm," and Ode Sung in the Town Hall, Concord; James T. Fields, "Song of the Turtle and the Flamingo"; Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus"; John Hay, "The Enchanted Shirt"; Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic"; Bret Harte, "The Reveille" and "A Greyport Legend"; T. W. Higginson, "The Snowing of the Pines"; H. W. Longfellow, "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Psalm of Life," "Home Song," "The Three Kings," and "The Harvest Moon"; James Russell Lowell, "Washington," extracts from "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "The Fatherland," "To the Dandelion," "The Singing Leaves," and "Stanzas on Freedom"; Lucy Larcom, "Hannah Binding Shoes"; Edna Dean Proctor, "Columbia's Emblem"; T. W. Parsons, "Dirge for One Who Fell in Battle"; E. C. Stedman, "The Flight of the Birds" and "Going A-Nutting"; E. R. Sill, "Opportunity"; W. W. Story, "The English Language"; Celia Thaxter, "The Sandpiper" and "Nikolina"; J. T. Trowbridge, "Evening at the Farm" and "Midwinter"; Bayard Taylor, "A Night With a Wolf" and "The Song of the Camp"; J. G. Whittier, "The Corn Song," "The Barefoot Boy," "Barbara Frietchie," extracts from "Snow-Bound," "Song of the Negro Boatman," and "The Pipes at Lucknow"; W. D. Howells, "In August"; J. G. Saxe, "Solomon and the Bees."