[Illustration:  (HOME AT NIGHT)]

[Illustration:  (WHEN LIDE MARRIED Him—­TITLE)]

WHEN LIDE MARRIED HIM

When Lide married him—­w’y, she had to jes dee-fy
The whole poppilation!—­But she never bat’ an eye! 
Her parents begged, and threatened—­she must give him up—­that he
Wuz jes “a common drunkard!”—­And he wuz, appearantly.—­
          Swore they’d chase him off the place
          Ef he ever showed his face—­
Long after she’d eloped with him and married him fer shore!—­
When Lide married him, it wuz “Katy, bar the door!”

When Lide married him—­Well! she had to go and be
A hired girl in town somewheres—­while he tromped round to see
What he could git that he could do,—­you might say, jes sawed wood
From door to door!—­that’s what he done—­’cause that wuz best he could! 
          And the strangest thing, i jing! 
          Wuz, he didn’t drink a thing,—­
But jes got down to bizness, like he someway wanted to,
When Lide married him, like they warned her not to do!

When Lide married him—­er, ruther, had ben married
A little up’ards of a year—­some feller come and carried
That hired girl away with him—­a ruther stylish feller
In a bran-new green spring-wagon, with the wheels striped red and yeller: 
          And he whispered, as they driv
          Tords the country, “Now we’ll live!”—­
And somepin’ else she laughed to hear, though both her eyes wuz dim,
‘Bout “trustin’ Love and Heav’n above, sence Lide married him!”

[Illustration:  (WHEN LIDE MARRIED Him—­TAILPIECE)]

HER HAIR

The beauty of her hair bewilders me—­
  Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide
  Swirling about the ears on either side
And storming around the neck tumultuously: 
Or like the lights of old antiquity
  Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide,
  Spilled moltenly o’er figures deified
In chastest marble, nude of drapery. 
And so I love it.—­Either unconfined;
  Or plaited in close braidings manifold;
Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined
  In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled
At any lightest kiss; or by the wind
  Whipped out in flossy ravelings of gold.

[Illustration:  (HER HAIR)]

[Illustration:  (LAST NIGHT AND THIS—­TITLE)]

LAST NIGHT—­AND THIS

Last night—­how deep the darkness was! 
And well I knew its depths, because
I waded it from shore to shore,
Thinking to reach the light no more.

She would not even touch my hand.—­
The winds rose and the cedars fanned
The moon out, and the stars fled back
In heaven and hid—­and all was black!