Done, and I still can say "Let be;
I have no word of blame;
Though her heart is no more for me,
Mine shall be still the same."

I have my life to live and she--
Well, if it be so--so;
She may welcome or banish me
And if I go, I go.

Friend, I pray you repress those tears,
Comfort from this derive:
I am a score--and more-of years
And Jean is only five.

A MEMORY

From buckwheat fields the summer sun
Drew honeyed breezes over
The lanes where happy children run
With bare feet in the clover.

The schoolhouse stood with pines about
Upon the hill, and ever
A creek, where hid the speckled trout,
Ran past it to the river.

And rosy faces gathered there,
With rustic good around them;
With breath of balm blown everywhere,
Pure, ere the world had found them.

Behind sweet purple ambuscades
Of lilacs, laws were broken;
And here a desk with knives was frayed,
There passed forbidden token.

One slipped a butternut between
His pearly teeth; a maiden
Dove-eyed, caressed her cheek; 'twas e'en
With maple sugar laden--

A flock that caught at wiles, because
The shepherd's hand that drove them,
Reached little toward wise human laws,
And less to God above them.

With eyebrows bent and surly look
He only saw before him,
The rule, the lesson, and the book,
Not nature brooding o'er him.

One day through drone of locusts fell
The wood-bird's fitful tapping,
And in his chair at "dinner-spell,"
The teacher grim sat napping.

An urchin creeping in beholds
The tyrant slumber-smitten,
And in his pocket's ample folds
He thrusts the school-yard kitten.

At length the master waked, and clanged
His bell with anger fitting;