han in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

THE COORTIN'.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru' the winder;
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side,
With half a cord o' wood in;
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
Ah' in amongst em rusted
The ole queen's-arm that gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur;
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A1,
Clean grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton,
Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells--
All is, he wouldn't love 'em.

But 'long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir:
My! when he made Ole Hundred ring,
She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.

That night, I tell ye, she looked _some!_
She seemed to've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heerd a foot, an' knowed