Cobwebs from a Library Corner

For all thy little woes;
For was it not thy happy lot
To live and die a rose?

THE WORST OF ENEMIES

I do not fear an enemy
Who all his days hath hated me.

I do not bother o’er a foe
Whose name and face I do not know.

I mind me not the small attack
Of him who bites behind my back:

But Heaven help me to the end
’Gainst that one who was once my friend.

JOKES OF THE NIGHT

Blessed jokes of my dreams! Your praises I’d sing.
No mirth can compare to the mirth that you bring.
I’ve read London Punch from beginning to end,
On all comic papers much money I spend,
But naught that is in them can ever seem bright
Beside the rich jokes that I dream of at night.

How I laugh at those jests of my brain when at rest,
The gladdest and merriest, sweetest and best!
And how, when I wake in the morning and try
To call them to mind, oh how bashful, how shy
They seem, how they scatter and hide out of sight —
Those jokes of my dreamings, those jests of the night!

Take the one that came to me to-day just at dawn:
The Cable-Car turns and remarks to the Prawn,
“The Crowbar is seasick; but then what of that,
As long as the Camel won’t wear a silk hat?”
I laughed – why, I laughed till my wife had a fright
For fear I’d go wild from that joke of the night.

And they’re all much like that one – elusive enough,
Yet full of facetious, hilarious stuff —
Stuff past comprehension, stuff no man dares tell;
For nocturnal jests, e’en told ever so well —
’Tis odd it should be so – are not often bright,
Except to the dreamer who dreams them at night.

AN AUTUMNAL ROMANCE

A leaf fell in love with the soft green lawn,
He deemed her the sweetest and best,
And then on a dreary November dawn
He withered and died on her breast.

THE COUNTRY IN JULY

Where glistening in the softness of the night
The vagrant will-o’-wisps do greet the sight;
Where fragrance baffling permeates the breeze
That gently flouts the grasses and the trees;
Where every flying thing doth seem to be
Instinct with sweetly sensuous melody;
Where hills and dales assume their warmest phase,
With here and there a scarf of opal haze
To soften their luxuriant attire;
Where one can almost hear the elfin choir
Across the meadow-land, down in the wood,
In songs of gladness – there are all things good.
Ah! ye who seek the spot where joys abide,
Awake! Awake! Seek out the country-side,
And through the blue-gray July haze see life
All free from care, from sorrow, and from strife.

MAY 30, 1893

It seemed to be but chance, yet who shall say
That ’twas not part of Nature’s own sweet way,

That on the field where once the cannon’s breath
Lay many a hero cold and stark in death,

Some little children, in the after-years,
Had come to play among the grassy spears,

And, all unheeding, when their romp was done,
Had left a wreath of wild flowers over one

Who fought to save his country, and whose lot
It was to die unknown and rest forgot?

THE CURSE OF WEALTH

“What shall I put my dollars in?” he asked, in wild dismay.
“I’ve fifty thousand of ’em, and I’d like to keep ’em too.
I’d like to put them by to serve some future rainy day,
But in these times of queer finance what can a fellow do?

“A railway bond is picturesque, and the supply is great,
But strangely like a novel that upon occasion drags,