ODE FOR THE MARRIAGE SEASON.
Reading edition
II.
"If any of you know Cause or impediment."— Cause! I should think I do, That girl to wed I meant! She made me drink the cup Of woe, well-shaken up With bitter sediment. If I forbid the banns With visage pallid, Ere she's another man's, And I have rallied, Because in bygone days With me she dallied, Would my forbidding phrase Be counted valid? Because her eyes would shine Once when I praised her, Because her heart to mine, When I upraised her From the low garden chair, Beat for a moment's space With sudden, yielding grace While I just kiss'd her hair, Which nought amazed her; Soothed her with loving touch, Loving, but not too much, When on her little hand The buckle of her band Had lightly grazed her? Slowly our souls between Mists of reserve crept in— I reck'd not, blindly— A sister she became, O chill and veal-like name! A great deal less than kin, Much less than kindly. Then on the old sweet ways Of thoughtless, chummy days, Turning severely, Pride, hooded in dislike, Struck as a snake might strike, And, in the public gaze, Froze me austerely. Well, all is vanity; She'll disillusion'd be, And I—well, as for me, When these confusions Clear from my brain away, Back in my thoughts I'll stray Where sunbeams ever play On lost illusions.
ONE THING AT A TIME.
Genial Master (under the painful necessity of discharging his Coachman). "I'm afraid, Simmons, we must part. The fact is, I couldn't help noticing that several times during the last Month you have been—Sober; and I don't believe a Man can attend properly to the Drink if he has Driving to do!"