And rocks in her easy-chair;
She is dressed in silks and satins,
And jewels are in her hair;
She winks, and giggles, and simpers.
And simpers, and giggles, and winks;
And though she talks but little,
It's vastly more than she thinks.
Her father goes clad in russet-
All brown and seedy at that;
His coat is out at the elbows,
And he wears a shocking bad hat.
He is hoarding and saving his dollars,
So carefully, day by day,
While she on her whims and fancies
Is squandering them all away.
She lies in bed of a morning
Until the hour of noon,
Then comes down, snapping and snarling Because she's called too soon.
Her hair is still in papers,
Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint Remains of last night's blushes
Before she attempted to faint.
Her feet are so very little,
Her hands are so very white,
Her jewels so very heavy,
And her head so very light; Her color is made of cosmeticsThough this she'll never own; Her body is mostly cotton,
And her heart is wholly stone. She falls in love with a fellow Who swells with a foreign air; He marries her for her money, She marries him for his hair
HATEVER I do and whatever I say,
Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way,
When she was a girl (forty summers ago),
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.
Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice-
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!
And besides I forget half the things I am told;
But they all will come back to me-when I am old.
If a youth passes by, it may happen no doubt,
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;
She would never endure an impertinent stare,
It is horrid, she says, and I musn't sit there.
A walk in the moonlight has pleasure, I own,
But it isn't quite safe to be walking alone;
So I take a lad's arm-just for safety, you know-
But Aunt Tabitha tells me, they didn't do so.
How wicked we are, and how good they were then!
They kept at arm's length those detestable men;
What an era of virtue she lived in!-but stay-
Were the men such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?
If the men were so wicked-I'll ask my papa
How he dared to propose to my darling mamma?
Was he like the rest of them? goodness! who knows?
And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose?
I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin,
What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!
And her grand-aunt- it scares me- how shockingly
sad
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!
A martyr will save us, and nothing else can;
Let us perish to rescue some wretched young man!
Though when to the altar a victim I go,
Aunt Tabitha 'll tell me-she never did so.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
BOOK is a living voice. It is a spirit walking on the face of the earth. It continues to be the living thought of a person separated from us by space and time. Men pass away; monuments crumble into dust-what remains and survives is human thought.
THE snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below.
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along,
Beautiful snow, it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak.
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love!
O the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go!
Whirling about in its maddening fun,
It plays in its glee with every one.
It lights up the face and it sparkles the eye;
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around.
The town is alive, and its heart in a glow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow.
How the wild crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humor and song!
How the gay sledges like meteors flash by,—
Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye.
Over the crest of the beautiful snow:
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by;
To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of feet
Till it blends with the horrible filth in the street.
Once I was pure as the snow,- but I fell:
Fell, like the snow-flakes, from heaven-to hell:
Fell, to be tramped as the filth of the street:
Fell, to be scoffed, to be spit on, and beat.
Pleading,
Cursing,
Selling my soul to whoever would buy,
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Merciful God! have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like this beautiful snow!
Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like its crystals, a heart like its glow;
Once I was loved for my innocent grace,—
Flattered and sought for the charm of my face.
Father,
Mother,
God, and myself I have lost by my fall.
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will take a wide sweep, lest I wander too nigh;
For of all that is on or about me, I know
There is nothing that's pure but the beautiful snow.
How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it would be, when the night comes again,
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,
Gone mad in its joy at the snow's coming down;
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!
JAMES W. WATSON.
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