ly with sands
Of gold and porphyry.
Where shall we land?

The fairy isles we see,
Loom up so mistily--
So vaguely fair,
We do not care to break
Fresh bubbles in our wake
To bend our course for there.
Where shall we land?

The warm winds of the deep
Have lulled our sails to sleep,
And so we glide
Careless of wave or wind,
Or change of any kind,
Or turn of any tide.
Where shall we land?

We droop our dreamy eyes
Where our reflection lies
Steeped in the sea,
And, in an endless fit
Of languor, smile on it
And its sweet mimicry.
Where shall we land?

"Where shall we land?" God's grace!
I know not any place
So fair as this--
Swung here between the blue
Of sea and sky, with you
To ask me, with a kiss,
"Where shall we land?"

THE TOUCHES OF HER HANDS

The touches of her hands are like the fall
Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondling of the thistle-wisp
Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.

Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight--
The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.

O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs;
Or--in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears and fears are gone--
Sleep, smoothing down the lids of weary eyes.

[Illustration]

FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR

It's a mystery to see me--a man o' fifty-four,
Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year and more--
A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say
That you can guess the reason why I feel so good
to-day!

I must tell you all about it! But I'll have to deviate
A little in beginning, so's to set the matter straight
As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife--
Kind o' "crawfish" from the Present to the Springtime of my life!

I was brought up in the co