Excerpt from The Small People: A Little Book of Verse About, Children for Their Elders, Chosen, Edited Arranged The scope of this little volume is sufficiently indicated by its title as to render unnecessary more than a brief word of introduction. It is a little collection of the poetry inspired by our dearest treasures, our small people. While anthologies of poetry for these small people are to be found in scores, few attempts have been made to collect those poems whose theme is the child from the parents' view - the child in sleep, in play, in mischief, and in the thousand sweet and self-revealing phases of the eternal mystery of Childhood. Here are gathered such poems, from the patronising note of the early writers to the note of adoration most noticeable in the child-poems of E. Nesbit, Mr. H. H. Bashford, and Mr. Alfred Noyes; with, in con elusion, a little scrip of consolation for those in whose ears the patter of small feet is now only the music of a dream. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.