Upon a Lady's complaining of a severe Cold, caught at Dancing.

I.

Say, lovely F LAVIA , what's the Cause?
Those Eyes divinely bright,
Why thus eclips'd? — Alas! the Change!
The Change since Yester-night!

II.

How oft have I, with friendly Zeal,
Most anxious for your Life,
Exclaim'd — Avert from me, ye Gods!
Avert a Dancing Wife!

III.

Still you wou'd brave the Fairy Round,

Calmly, calmly lay him down;
He hath fought a noble fight,
He hath battled for the right,
He hath won the fadeless crown.

Memories, all too bright for tears,
Crowd around us from the past:
He was faithful to the last,
Faithful through long, toilsome years.

All that makes for human good,
Freedom, righteousness and truth, —
These, the objects of his youth,
Unto age he still pursued.

Kind and gentle was his soul,
Yet it had a glorious might:
Clouded minds it filled with light,
Wounded spirits it made whole.

" The North has got him. " — Yukonism.

I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good.
By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold,
With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold.
I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;

The old hag sat on the park bench, picking her teeth:
Her hat was askew over her stiffened bangs:
Her skirts were bunched together: her shoes broken.

What did Spring mean to her?
What meaning in the new grass blades and the cloudy blue of the skies?
How did the slow-rising love-hymn of the Earth sound in her ears?
What mate in the world for her?

I passed by, young and in power:
But I wished for a moment I could be inside her head,
And see what else the world means.

McPheerson came from Mucklebrae
Long, weary whiles ago —
In Scotland, somewhere, far away,
If you should want to know.
His pants were patched about the knees,
His beard was reddish grey;
But you'll remember, if you please,
He came from Mucklebrae.

He couldn't keep his farm-hands, so
McPheerson made a plan:
He wrote the Government Bureau
To send him out a man.

He stumbled up the ridges
With his old cattle-dog;
He took his maul and wedges
From underneath a log —
His wedges, maul and crosscut,
So light to drive and draw;
And he rubbed well with suet
The dew-rust on the saw.

He marked a tree and felled it,
As lone-hand splitters do;
He measured it and cut it —
The cuts were straight and true.
And all day in December,
When dust and heat prevails,
From out the groaning timber
He belted posts and rails.

He'd come across the water;
His thoughts were far away —

The music of the marriage bell
Woke all the morning air to pleasure,
And breasts there were that rose and fell
To the delightful measure.
Oh, well it were if they might hear alway
The music of their nuptial day
Flowing, as o'er enchanted lakes and streams
Out of the land of dreams —
Sweet sounds that melt but never cease,
Dropped from celestial bells of peace.
Oh, well it were if those rare bridal flowers
Had drunken deep of life's perpetual dews,
Had drunken of those charmed showers
For ever falling in ambrosial hues

The heart is a city teeming with life —
Through all its gay avenues, rife
With gladness
And innocent madness,
Bright beings are passing along,
Too fleeting and fair for the eye to behold,
While something of Paradise sweetens their song,
They are gliding away with their wild gushing ditty,
Out of the city,
Out of the beautiful gates of gold!
Through gates that are ringing
While to and fro swinging,
Swinging and ringing ceaselessly,
Like delicate hands that are clapped in glee,
Beautiful hands of infancy!

Paddy the Ram was a cankered spud, and he was a matured egg,
With a leg that went straight as a leg might go, and a sort of circular leg.
He worked his way with his shoulder blades, and his turret would sometimes jamb;
And he screwed his “dial” at every step; and that was Paddy the Ram.

He'd shout for himself and he'd bum for beer, and tobacco he'd seldom buy,
But Paddy the Ram was the Only Joke in the township of Blankydry.
He'd shake his stick at the world at large, and his mildest word was damn,

I thank thee, Lord, for precious things
Which thou into my life hast brought;
More gratefully my spirit sings
Its thanks for all I yet have not.

How fair thy world to me has been!
How dear the friends who breathe its air!
But who can guess what waits within
Thine opening realms, thy worlds more fair?

At friendly shores, at peaceful isles
I touch, but may not long delay;
Where thy flushed East with mystery smiles
I steer into the unrisen day.

For veils of hope before thee drawn,
For mists that hint the immortal coast