all alone,
And left, Joe, to do all the "sueing"
To a lover that's certainly flown.

In this brand-new hotel, called "The Lily"
(I wonder who gave it that name?)
I really am feeling quite silly,
To think I was once called the same;
And I stare from its windows, and fancy
I'm labeled to each passer-by.
Ah! gone is the old necromancy,
For nothing seems right to my eye.

On that hill there are stores that I knew not;
There's a street--where I once lost my way;
And the copse where you once tied my shoe-knot
Is shamelessly open as day!
And that bank by the spring--I once drank there,
And you called the place Eden, you know;
Now I'm banished like Eve--though the bank there
Is belonging to "Adams and Co."

There's the rustle of silk on the sidewalk;
Just now there passed by a tall hat;
But there's gloom in this "boom" and this wild talk
Of the "future" of Poverty Flat.
There's a decorous chill in the air, Joe,
Where once we were simple and free;
And I hear they've been making a mayor, Joe,
Of the man who shot Sandy McGee.

But there's still the "lap, lap" of the river;
There's the song of the pines, deep and low.
(How my longing for them made me quiver
In the park that they call Fontainebleau!)
There's the snow-peak that looked on our dances,
And blushed when the morning said, "Go!"
There's a lot that remains which one fancies--
But somehow there's never a Joe!

Perhaps, on the whole, it is better,
For you might have been changed like the rest;
Though it's strange that I'm trusting this letter
To papa, just to have it addressed.
He thinks he may find you, and really
Seems kinder now I'm all alone.
You might have been here, Joe, if merely
To LOOK what I'm willing to OWN.

Well, well! that's all past; so good-night, Joe;
Good-night to the river and Flat;
Good-night to what's wrong and what's right, Joe;
Good-night to the past, and all that--
To Harrison's barn, and its dancers;
To the moon, and the white peak of snow;
And good-night to the canyon that answers
My "Joe!" with its echo of "No!"

P. S.

I've just got your note. You deceiver!
How dared you--how COULD you? Oh, Joe!
To think I