Nothing can be sour and sharp
As a love that has decayed-
On the loose strings of the harp
Only discord can be made.
Cold this common friendship seems
After love's auroral glow;
On the broken stem of dreams
Only disappointments grow.

Do I hate you? No! Not hate?
Hate's a word far too intense,

Too alive, to speak a state

Of supreme indifference.
Once, behind your eyes I thought
Worlds of love and life to see;
Now I see behind them nought
But a soulless vacancy.

Out and out I know you now;
There's no issue of your heart
Where my soul with you may go
To a beauty all apart,

Where the world can never come.
"T is a little narrow place-
Friendship there might find a home;

Love would die-for want of space.

So we live! The world still says,
"What expression in her eyes!
What sweet manners-graceful ways!"
How it would the world surprise
If I said, "This woman's soul

Made for love you think, but try;
Plunge therein-how clear and shoal!—
You might drown there-so can't I?"

In the Rain

I stand in the cold gray weather,
In the white and silvery rain;
The great trees huddle together,
And sway with the windy strain.
I dream of the purple glory

Of the roseate mountain-height
And the sweet-to-remember story
Of a distant and clear delight.

The rain keeps constantly raining,
And the sky is cold and gray,
And the wind in the trees keeps complaining
That summer has passed away;—
But the gray and the cold are haunted
By a beauty akin to pain,-

By a sense of a something wanted,

That never will come again.

Snowdrop

When, full of warm and eager love,
I clasp you in my fond embrace,
You gently push me back and say,

"Take care, my dear, you'll spoil my lace."

You kiss me just as you would kiss

Some woman friend you chanced to see; You call me "dearest." All love's forms Are yours, not its reality.

Oh, Annie! cry, and storm, and rave!
Do anything with passion in it!
Hate me an hour, and then turn round
And love me truly, just one minute.

What Mr. Robinson Thinks

Guvener B. is a sensible man;

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;
But John P.

Robinson he

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?

We can't never choose him o' course,-thet 's flat; Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:

He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;

But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,-
He's ben true to one party,-an' thet is himself;-
So John P.

Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;

He don't vally princerple more 'n an old cud; Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,

But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?

So John P.

Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; But John P.

Robinson he

Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.

The side of our country must ollers be took,
An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country.
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry;
An' John P.

Robinson he

Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;

Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, faw, fum; An' thet all this big talk of our destinies

Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half rum;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez it aint no sech thing; an', of course, so must

we.