To-day--alas, to-day, there’s a tear in my eye, And deep at my heart there’s a pain. With a sob and a sigh the winds hurry by, They are singing, singing a sad refrain. “Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say, “Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.” Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again. Too gentle and fair, for this rude world of jostle and care; Too kind-hearted and good, for this hard life of trouble and pain, So the angels, they have taken Mabel away, But ’tis sweet, it still is sweet to think that some day, In that “beautiful city Up There,” Maybe we shall meet our dear little friend Mabel again. Yet to-day,--oh, to-day, there’s a tear in each eye, And deep at each heart there’s a pain; Through the over-cast sky, dark trailing clouds hurry by, And it looks like rain. While the winds are singing,--still singing that sad refrain. “Nay, nay,” they seem to sing, they seem to say: “Nay, nay, we shall never meet Mabel again.” _FAREWELL!--I AM STILL CAMPING!_ My dear tourist friend--farewell! Farewell perhaps forever. Farewell! I am still camping! In the cool shade of the cottonwoods beside the Platte, I am camping. I who erstwhile in careless youth’s hilarious days, a handsome book of verse and prose did write and print, a book that has neither brought me fame nor fortune as yet; nay, nay, and it never will. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I am still camping. In delightful tranquility and in the generous shelter of the tall timber close down by the clear blue water’s side, my humble little abode is still standing. Its dingy white-washed walls may yet be seen peeping out pleasingly from among the thick green leaves of the patriarchal trees of the forest. Yes, yes; I am still camping. Pegasus, my “broncho plug” (my vaunted poet’s steed!), has long since been turned loose to browse on the luxurious sage-brush, and the crisp buffalo-grass of the Great Plains. Genevieve, my docile cow, too, has strayed away, or else she has been stolen, which I know not, neither do I care, as I am in the “stock business” no longer. To-day, to-day, just as of yore; seated still on the same old log,--silently--silently, still, I am angling in the Platte. Angling still for “suckers” in the eddying tide, but alas! alas! they do not bite. They seem to realize perfectly, clearly, that I have been along this way before. They seem, metaphorically, to say, “No, sir, no; we respectfully decline your book-worm-bait, and your cunningly contrived fly-productions.”