My doctors say they know the cause, And they've gone to work with eager zest, Probed and expounded with weighty straws, And leeches attached to my troubled breast; I fee them well, as attests my purse But day after day I'm growing worse.
Though they have not yet touched the cause they knew, And are wrangling over its direful flood, They promise to build me better than new, And stop the drain on my famished blood; But lest they're careful while building the dam They'll scoop out a grave for "Uncle Sam."
NAY, DO NOT ASK.
Nay, do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before, Or if, mayhap, in other years to be, A younger, fairer face than thine I know, I'll love her more than thee.
What should it matter if I've loved before, So that I love thee now, and love thee best? What matters it that I should love again If, first, the daisy-buds blow o'er thy breast?
Love has the waywardness of strange caprice, One can not chain it to a recreant heart, Nor, when around the soul its tendrils twine, Can will the clinging, silken bonds to part.
It is enough, I hold thee prisoned in my arms, And drink the dewy fragrance of thy breath; And earth, and heaven, and hades, are forgot, And love holds carnival, and laughs at death.
Then do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before, Or if some day my heart might turn from thee; In this brief hour, thou hast my soul of love, And thou are Is, and Was, and May be—all to me.
A PICTURE.
A little maid, with sweet brown eyes, Upraised to mine in sad surprise; I held two tiny hands in mine, I kissed the little maid farewell. Her cheeks to deeper crimson flushed, The sweet, shy glances downward fell; From rosy lips came—ah! so low— "I love you, do not go!"
I see it through the lapse of years— This picture, ofttimes blurred with tears. No tiny hands in mine are held, No sweet brown eyes my pulses wake— Only in memory a voice E'er bids me stay for love's sweet sake.
HANG UP YOUR STOCKING.
Laugh, little bright-eyes, hang up your stocking; Don't count the days any
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