Would ye b'lieve it? that night that Walked herself into her stall, and Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary - that That's what I call a hoss! and. Drownded, I reckon, leastways, he never kem back to deny it. Ye see, the derned fool had no seat, - ye couldn't have made him a rider; And then, ye know, boys will be BRET HARTE. RUDOLPH THE HEADSMAN. RUDOLPH, professor of the heads man's trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's Bare armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, His falchion lightened with a sudden As the pike's armor flashes in the He stream. sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) "Friend, I hare struck," the artist straight replied; "Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." "Now He held his snuff-box, Which is why I remark, And my language is plain, BRET HARTE. THE COSMIC EGG. UPON a rock yet uncreate, And the cloud was rock, As I sit at my desk by the window, when the garden with dew is wet, On the morning incense rises the breath of the mignonette, Laden with tender memories of thirty years ago, When she gave me her worthless promise, and we loved each other so, Till her tough old worldly mother let her maiden charms be sold To a miser, as hard and yellow as his hoard of shining gold. As in Central Park I met them on their cheerful morning ride, As she snarled at her henpecked husband who was crouching by her side, I thought in the dust of the pathway, "I have the best of you yet!" Far better the dream of a fadeless love in the breath of the mignonette, And little Alice and Mabel, and the children that might have been, Come dancing out on the paper at a twirl of the magic pen, Not a horrid boy among them, but a bevy of little girls With great brown eyes, love-shining, mid a halo of golden curls. They never grow old or naughty; and in them I fail to see The slightest fault or taint of sin which could have been charged to me. They are mine, all mine forever! No lover to them can come, To steal away their loving hearts to grace a doubtful home. And so, when the tender evening or morning with dew is wet, I dream of my vanished darlings in the breath of the mignonette. BARTLETT. |