I gouged out a grave a few feet deep, And there in the Earth's arms I laid her to sleep; And there she is lying, and no one knows; And the summer shines, and the winter snows; For many a day the flowers have spread A pall of petals over her head; And the little grey hawk hangs aloft in the air, And the sly coyote trots here and there, And the black snake glides and glitters and slides Into the rift of a cottonwood tree; And the buzzard sails on, And comes and is gone, Stately and still, like a ship at sea. And I wonder why I do not care For the things that are, like the things that were. Does half my heart lie buried there In Texas, down by the Rio Grande? _Frank Desprez._ THE TRANSFORMATION OF A TEXAS GIRL SHE was a Texas maiden, she came of low degree, Her clothes were worn and faded, her feet from shoes were free; Her face was tanned and freckled, her hair was sun-burned, too, Her whole darned _tout ensemble_ was painful for to view! She drove a lop-eared mule team attached unto a plow, The trickling perspiration exuding from her brow; And often she lamented her cruel, cruel fate, As but a po' white's daughter down in the Lone Star State. No courtiers came to woo her, she never had a beau, Her misfit face precluded such things as that, you know,-- She was nobody's darling, no feller's solid girl, And poets never called her an uncut Texas pearl. Her only two companions was those two flea-bit mules, And these she but regarded as animated tools To plod along the furrows in patience up and down And pull the ancient wagon when pap'd go to town. No fires of wild ambition were flaming in her soul, Her eyes with tender passion she'd never upward roll; The wondrous world she'd heard of, to her was but a dream As walked she in the furrows behind that lop-eared team. Born on that small plantation, 'twas there she thought she'd die; She never longed for pinions that she might rise and fly To other lands far distant, where breezes fresh and cool Would never shake and tremble from brayings of a mule. . . . . . . . But yesterday we saw her dressed up in gorgeous style! A half a dozen fellows were basking in her smile! She'd jewels on her fingers, and jewels in her ears-- Great sparkling, flashing brilliants that hung as frozen tears! The feet once nude and soil-stained were clad in Frenchy boots, The once tanned face bore tintings of miscellaneous fruits; The voice that once admonished the mules to move along Was tuned to new-born music, as sweet as Siren's song!