Swinging lanterns, twinkling clear Through night-scenes, are songs to her-- Tinted lilts and choiring hues, Blent with children's glad halloos; Then belated lays that fade Into midnight's serenade-- Vine-like words and zithern-strings Twined through ali her slumberings. Blessed be each hearthstone set Neighboring the violet! Blessed every rooftree prayed Over by the beech's shadel Blessed doorway, opening where We may look on Nature--there Hand to hand and face to face-- Storied realm, or Woodruff Place. FARMER WHIPPLE.--BACHELOR. It's a mystery to see me--a man o' fifty-four, Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more-- A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say That you can guess the reason why I feel so good to-day! I must tell you all about it! But I'll have to deviate A little in beginning so's to set the matter straight As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife-- Kind o' "crawfish" from the Present to the Springtime of my life! I was brought up in the country: Of a family of five-- Three brothers and a sister--I'm the only one alive,-- Fer they all died little babies; and 'twas one o' Mother's ways, You know, to want a daughter; so she took a girl to raise. The sweetest little thing she was, with rosy cheeks, and fat-- We was little chunks o' shavers then about as high as that! But someway we sort o' _suited_-like! and Mother she'd declare She never laid her eyes on a more lovin' pair Than _we_ was! So we growed up side by side fer thirteen year', And every hour of it she growed to me more dear!-- W'y, even Father's dyin', as he did, I do believe Warn't more affectin' to me than it was to see her grieve! I was then a lad o' twenty; and I felt a flash o' pride In thinkin' all depended on _me_ now to pervide Fer Mother and fer Mary; and I went about the place With sleeves rolled up--and workin', with a mighty smilin' face.-- Fer _sompin' else_ was workin'! but not a word I said Of a certain sort o' notion that was runnin' through my head,-- "Someday I'd mayby marry, and _a brother's_ love was one Thing--a _lover's_ was another!" was the way the notion run! I remember onc't in harvest, when the "cradle-in'" was done-- When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty-one-- I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day-- A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way! And Mary's cheeks was burnin' like the sunset down the lane: I noticed she was thinkin', too, and ast her to explain Well--when she turned and _kissed_ me, _with her arm around me--law_! I'd a bigger load o' heaven than I had a load o' straw! I don't p'tend to learnin', but I'll tell you what's a fac', They's a mighty truthful sayin' somers in a almanack-- Er _somers_--'bout "puore happiness"--perhaps some folks'll laugh At the idy--"only lastin' jest two seconds and a half."--