at my bidding, and gallantly cranked,
As I grovelled and clung, with my eyes in eclipse,
And a rim of red foam round my rapturous lips.

Then I cast loose my ulster--each ear-tab let fall--
Kicked off both my shoes--let go arctics and all--
Stood up with the boys--leaned--patted each head
As it bobbed up and down with the speed that we sped;
Clapped my hands--laughed and sang--any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix we rotated and stood.

And all I remember is friends flocking round
As I unsheathed my head from a hole in the ground;
And no voice but was praising that hand-car divine,
As I rubbed down its spokes with that lecture of mine.
Which (the citizens voted by common consent)
Was no more than its due. 'Twas the lecture they meant.

IN THE HEART OF JUNE

In the heart of June, love,
You and I together,
On from dawn till noon, love,
Laughing with the weather;
Blending both our souls, love,
In the selfsame tune,
Drinking all life holds, love,
In the heart of June.

In the heart of June, love,
With its golden weather,
Underneath the moon, love,
You and I together.
Ah! how sweet to seem, love,
Drugged and half aswoon
With this luscious dream, love,
In the heart of June.

DREAMS

"Do I sleep, do I dream,
Do I wonder and doubt--
Are things what they seem
Or is visions about?"

There has always been an inclination, or desire, rather, on my part to
believe in the mystic--even as far back as stretches the gum-elastic
remembrance of my first "taffy-pullin'" given in honor of my fifth
birthday; and the ghost-stories, served by way of ghastly dessert, by
our hired girl. In fancy I again live over all the scenes of that
eventful night:--

The dingy kitchen, with its haunting odors of a thousand feasts and
wash-days; the old bench-legged stove, with its happy family of
skillets, stewpans and round-bellied kettles crooning and blubbering
about it. And how we children clustered round the genial hearth, with
the warm smiles dying from our faces just as the embers dimmed and
died out in the open grate, as with bated breath we listened to how
some one's grandmother had said that her first man went through a
graveyard once, one stormy night, "jest to show the neighbors that he
wasn't afeard o' nothin'," and how when he was just passing