n the dark, I smiling stare
At one wide window over there,

Where some one, smoking, pinks the gloom,
The darling darkness of his room!

I push my shutters wider yet,
And lo! I light a cigarette;

And gleam for gleam, and glow for glow,
Each pulse of light a word we know,

We talk of love that still will burn
While cigarettes to ashes turn.

TWO SONNETS TO THE JUNE-BUG

I

You make me jes' a little nervouser
Than any dog-gone bug I ever see!
And you know night's the time to pester me--
When any tetch at all 'll rub the fur
Of all my patience back'ards! You're the myrrh
And ruburb of my life! A bumblebee
Cain't hold a candle to you; and a he
Bald hornet, with a laminated spur
In his hip pocket, daresent even cheep
When you're around! And, dern ye! you have made
Me lose whole ricks and stacks and piles of sleep,--
And many of a livelong night I've laid
And never shut an eye, hearin' you keep
Up that eternal buzzin' serenade!

II

And I've got up and lit the lamp, and clum
On cheers and trunks and wash-stands and bureaus,
And all such dangerous articles as those,
And biffed at you with brooms, and never come
'In two feet of you,--maybe skeered you some,--
But what does that amount to when it throws
A feller out o' balance, and his nose
Gits barked ag'inst the mantel, while you hum
Fer joy around the room, and churn your head
Ag'inst the ceilin', and draw back and butt
The plasterin' loose, and drop--behind the bed,
Where never human-bein' ever putt
Harm's hand on you, er ever truthful said
He'd choked yer dern infernal wizzen shut!

AUTOGRAPHIC

_For an Album_

I feel, if aught I ought to rhyme,
I ought 'a' thought a longer time,
And ought 'a' caught a higher sense,
Of autocratic eloquence.
I ought 'a' sought each haughty Muse
That taught a thought I ought to use,
And fought and fraught, and so devised
A poem _unmonotonized_.--
But since all this was vain, I thought
I ought to simply say,--I ought
To thank you, as I ought to do,
And ought to bow my best to you;
And ought to trust not to intrude
A rudely wrought-up gratitude,
But ought to smile, and ought to laugh,
And ought to write--an autograph.

AN IMPROMPTU ON ROLLER SKATES