n I had run my rope,
Some bullet-headed little Swope
Would clean me out as slick as soap.
No doubt you were as bad, or worse,
Or else you had not read this verse.

[Illustration: "Me!"

_Page 18._]

All women were like pica print
When I was young and wise;
I'd read their very souls by dint
Of looking in their eyes.
And in those limpid souls I'd see
A very fierce regard for me.
And then--my, my, it makes me faint!--
Peroxide and a pinkish paint
Gave me the hard, hard heart complaint,
I saw the sham, I felt the taint,
Yet if she'd pat me once or twice,
I'd follow like a little fyce.

I never played a little game
And won a five or ten,
But, presto! I was not the same
As common makes of men.
Not Solomon and all his kind
Held half the wisdom of my mind.
And so I'd swell to twice my size,
And throw my hat across my eyes,
And chew a quill, and wear red ties,
And tip you off the stock to rise--
Until, at last, I'd have to steal
The baby's bank to buy a meal.

I speak as if these things remained
All in the perfect tense,
And yet I don't suppose I've gained
A single ounce of sense.
I scoff these tales of yesterday
In quite a supercilious way,
But by to-morrow I may bump
Into some newer game and jump!
You'll think I am the only trump
In all the deck until--kerslump!
Unless you'll do the same some time,
Of course you haven't read this rime.

[Illustration: The Eternal Everyday

_Page 21._]

THE ETERNAL EVERYDAY.

O, one might be like Socrates
And lift the hemlock up,
Pledge death with philosophic ease,
And drain the untrembling cup;--
But to be barefoot and be great,
Most in desert and least in state,
Servant of truth and lord of fate!
I own I falter at the peak
Trod daily by the steadfast Greek.

O, one might nerve himself to climb
His cross and cruelly die,
Forgiving his betrayer's crime,
With pity in his eye;--
But day by day and week by week
To feel his power and yet be meek,
Endure the curse and turn the cheek,
I scarce dare trust even you to be
As was the Jew of Galilee.

O, one might reach heroic heights
By one strong burst of power.
He might endure the whitest lights
Of heaven for an hour;--
But harder is