came by with a smile for me,
And I am thinking that forty year
Isn't the age that it seems to be,
When two pretty brown eyes are near.

Bless me! of life it is just the prime,
A fact that I hope she will understand;
And forty year is a perfect rhyme
To dark brown eyes and a pretty hand.

These gray hairs are by chance, you see--
Boys are sometimes gray, I am told:
Rose came by with a smile for me,
Just as I thought I was getting old.

Walter Learned [1847-1915]

THOUGHTS ON THE COMMANDMENTS

"Love your neighbor as yourself,"--
So the parson preaches:
That's one half the Decalogue,--
So the prayer-book teaches.
Half my duty I can do
With but little labor,
For with all my heart and soul
I do love my neighbor.

Mighty little credit, that,
To my self-denial,
Not to love her, though, might be
Something of a trial.
Why, the rosy light, that peeps
Through the glass above her,
Lingers round her lips,--you see
E'en the sunbeams love her.

So to make my merit more,
I'll go beyond the letter:--
Love my neighbor as myself?
Yes, and ten times better.
For she's sweeter than the breath
Of the Spring, that passes
Through the fragrant, budding woods,
O'er the meadow-grasses.

And I've preached the word I know,
For it was my duty
To convert the stubborn heart
Of the little beauty.
Once again success has crowned
Missionary labor,
For her sweet eyes own that she
Also loves her neighbor.

George Augustus Baker [1849-1906]

THE IRONY OF LOVE

"SIGH NO MORE, LADIES"
From "Much Ado About Nothing"

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

A RENUNCIATION

If women could be fair, and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I muse that men forget themselves so far.

To mark the choice they make, and how they change,