nvasion,--
As I, accordingly perverse,
Have courted no occasion.

Nor do I claim to comprehend
What Nature has in view
In giving us the very friend
To trust we oughtn't to.--
But so it is: The trusty gun
Disastrously exploded
Is always sure to be the one
We didn't think was loaded.

Our moaning is another's mirth,--
And what is worse by half,
We say the funniest thing on earth
And never raise a laugh:
Mid friends that love us overwell,
And sparkling jests and liquor,
Our hearts somehow are liable
To melt in tears the quicker.

We reach the wrong when most we seek
The right; in like effect,
We stay the strong and not the weak--
Do most when we neglect.--
Neglected genius--truth be said--
As wild and quick as tinder,
The more we seek to help ahead
The more we seem to hinder.

I've known the least the greatest, too--
And, on the selfsame plan,
The biggest fool I ever knew
Was quite a little man:
We find we ought, and then we won't--
We prove a thing, then doubt it,--
Know _everything_ but when we don't
Know _anything_ about it.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

A SCRAWL

I want to sing something--but this is all--
I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull
As though they were damp, and the echoes fall
Limp and unlovable.

Words will not say what I yearn to say--
They will not walk as I want them to,
But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
Of my telling my love for you.

Simply take what the scrawl is worth--
Knowing I love you as sun the sod
On the ripening side of the great round earth
That swings in the smile of God.

WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS

My dear old friends--It jes beats all,
The way you write a letter
So's ever' _last_ line beats the _first_,
And ever' _next_-un's better!--
W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
You make so inte_rest_in',
A feller, readin' of 'em all,
Can't tell which is the _best_-un.

It's all so comfortin' and good,
'Pears-like I almost _hear_ ye
And git more sociabler, you know,
And hitch my cheer up near ye
And jes smile on ye like the sun
Acrosst the whole per-rairies
In Aprile when the thaw's begun
And country couples marries.

[Illustration]

It's all so good-old-fashioned like
To _talk_ jes like we're _thinkin'_,
Without no hidin' back o' fans
And giggle-un and winkin',
Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed--
Like some is allus doin',--
"_Is_ Marth