But it's never gone back on us for nineteen or twenty years;

An' I won't go back on it now, or go to pokin' fun

There's such a thing as praisin' a thing for the good that it has done.

Probably you remember how rich we was that night,

When we was fairly settled, an' had things snug and tight:

We feel as proud as you please, Nancy, over our house that's new, But we felt as proud under this old roof, and a good deal prouder, too.

Never a handsomer house was seen beneath the sun :

Kitchen and parlor and bedroom had 'em all in one;

we

And the fat old wooden clock, that we bought when we come West,

Was tickin' away in the corner there, and doin' its level best.

Trees was all around us, a-whisperin' cheering words;

Loud was the squirrel's chatter, and sweet the songs of birds;

And home grew sweeter and brighter- our courage began to mount And things looked hearty and happy then, and work appeared to count.

And here one night it happened, when things was goin' bad,

We fell in a deep old quarrel- the first we ever had;

And when you give out and cried, then I, like a fool, give in,

And then we agreed to rub all out, and start the thing ag'in.

Here it was, you remember, we sat when the day was done,

And you was a-makin' clothing that wasn't for either one;

And often a soft word of love I was soft enough to say,

And the wolves was howlin' in the woods not twenty rods away.

INSECT or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing,
Poised upon slender tip, and quivering
To flight! a flower of the fields of air;
A jewelled moth; a butterfly, with rare
And tender tints upon his downy wing,
A moment resting in our happy sight;
A flower held captive by a thread so slight
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer
Are, light as the wind, with every wind
astir, -

Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.
O dainty nursling of the field and sky,
What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue
And drinks the noontide sun, the dawn-
ing's dew?

Thou winged bloom! thou blossom-butterfly!

Brown-bodied bees, that scent with nostrils

fine

The odorous blossom-wine,

Sipping, with heads half thrust
Into the pollen dust

Of rose and hyacinth and daffodil,
To hive, in amber cell,

A honey feasting for the winter-day:
So, better far than I,

Self-wrapt, that dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my useless life away.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON

WHAT

songs found voice upon those lips, What magic dwelt within the pen, Whose music into silence slips, Whose spell lives not again!

For her the clamorous to-day
The dreamful yesterday became;
The brands upon dead hearths that lay
Leaped into living flame.

Clear ring the silvery Mission bells
Their calls to vesper and to mass;

O'er vineyard slopes, through fruited dells,
The long processions pass;

The pale Franciscan lifts in air

The Cross above the kneeling throng; Their simple world how sweet with prayer, With chant and matin-song!

There, with her dimpled, lifted hands,
Parting the mustard's golden plumes,
The dusky maid, Ramona, stands
Amid the sea of blooms.

And Alessandro, type of all

His broken tribe, for evermore An exile, hears the stranger call

Within his father's door.

The visions vanish and are not,

Still are the sounds of peace and strife, -Passed with the earnest heart and thought Which lured them back to life.

O sunset land! O land of vine,

And rose, and bay! in silence here Let fall one little leaf of thine, With love, upon her bier.