Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall,
When she said that she should study elocution in the fall.
I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein:
She began with “Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne,
And the beacon-light a-trrremble—” which, although it made me wince,
Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she’s rendered since.
Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an,
And the way she gave “Young Grayhead” would have liquefied a stone;
Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ,
And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew “The Polish Boy.”
It’s not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul
Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll:
What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain
When she rose in social gatherings and searched among the slain.
I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb—
Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come
She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least—
As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast.
Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise
I associated strongly with those happier August days;
And I mused, “I’ll speak this evening,” recent pangs forgotten quite.
Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: “Curfew SHALL not ring to-night!”
Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance!
Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France?
Oh, as she “cull-imbed!” that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down.
I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown!
THE TENDER HEART.
BY HELEN GRAY CONE.
She gazed upon the burnished brace
Of plump, ruffed grouse he showed with pride,
Angelic grief was in her face:
“How
“The poor, pathetic moveless wings!”
The songs all hushed—”Oh, cruel shame!”
Said he, “The partridge never sings,”
Said she, “The sin is quite the same.”
“You men are savage, through and through,
A boy is always bringing in
Some string of birds’ eggs, white and blue,
Or butterfly upon a pin.
The angle-worm in anguish dies,
Impaled, the pretty trout to tease—”
“My own, we fish for trout with flies—”
“Don’t wander from the question, please.”
She quoted Burns’s “Wounded Hare,”
And certain burning lines of Blake’s,
And Ruskin on the fowls of air,
And Coleridge on the water-snakes.
At Emerson’s “Forbearance” he
Began to feel his will benumbed;
At Browning’s “Donald” utterly
His soul surrendered and succumbed.
“Oh, gentlest of all gentle girls!
He thought, beneath the blessed sun!”
He saw her lashes hang with pearls,
And swore to give away his gun.
She smiled to find her point was gained
And went, with happy parting words
