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! But ah! To-night a summons came, Signed with a teardrop for a name,-- For as I wondering kissed it, lo, A line beneath it told me so. And _now_ the moon hangs over me A disk of dazzling brilliancy, And every star-tip stabs my sight With splintered glitterings of light! [Illustration: (LAST NIGHT AND THIS--TAILPIECE)] [Illustration: (A DISCOURAGING MODEL--TITLE)] A DISCOURAGING MODEL Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing, Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, And a knot of red roses sown in under there Where the shadows are lost in her hair. Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound; And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint Round the lips of their favorite saint!