Jes' down the road a piece, 'ith dust so deep It teched the bay mare's fetlocks, an' the sun So b'ilin' hot, the peewees dassn't peep, Seemed like midsummer 'fore the spring's begun! An' me plumb beat an' good-for-nothin'-like An' awful lonedsome fer a sight o' you ... I come to that big locus' by the pike, An' she was all in bloom, an' trembly, too, With breezes like drug-store perfumery. I stood up in my sturrups, with my head So deep in flowers they almost smothered me. I kind o' liked to think that I was dead ... An' if I hed 'a' died like that to-day, I'd 'a' b'en the happiest man in Ioway. For what's the use't o' goin' on like this? Your pa not 'lowin' me around the place ... Well, fust I knowed, I'd give' them blooms a kiss; They tasted like Good-Night on your white face. I reached my arms out wide, an' hugged 'em--say, I dreamp' your little heart was hammerin' me! I broke this branch off for a love-bo'quet; 'F I'd b'en a giant, I'd 'a' plucked the tree! The blooms is kind o' dusty from the road, But you won't mind. So, as the feller said, "When this you see remember me"--I knowed Another poem; but I've lost my head From seein' you! 'Bout all that I kin say Is--"I'm the happiest man in Ioway." Well, comin' 'long the road I seen your ma Drive by to town--she didn't speak to me! An' in the farthest field I seen your pa At his spring-plowin', like I'd ought to be. But, knowin' you'd be here all by yourself, I hed to come; for now's our livin' chance! Take off yer apern, leave things on the shelf-- Our preacher needs what th' feller calls "romance." 'Ain't got no red-wheeled buggy; but the mare Will carry double, like we've trained her to. Jes' put a locus'-blossom in your hair An' let's ride straight to heaven--me an' you! I'll build y' a little house, an' folks'll say: "There lives the happiest pair in Ioway." PRAYERS God leaned forward in His throne and bent His all-seeing gaze upon one of the least of the countless suns. A few tiny planets spun slowly about it like dead leaves around a deserted camp-fire. Almost the smallest of these planets had named itself the Earth. The glow of the central cinder brightened one side and they called that Day. And where the shadow was was Night. The creeping glimmer of Day woke, as it passed, a jangle in shops and factories, a racket and hurry of traffic, war and business, which the coming of the gloom hushed in its turn. As God's eyes pierced the shadow they found, between the dotted lines of street-lamps and under the roofs where the windows glimmered--revelry or solemnity. In denser shadows there was a murmur of the voices of lovers and of families at peace or at war.