I want to find a warm beech wood, And lie down, and keep still; And swear a little; and feel good; Then loaf on up the hill, And let the Spring house-clean my brain, Where all this stuff is crammed; And let my heart grow sweet again; And let the Age be damned. WASTED OPPORTUNITIES[6] BY ROY FARRELL GREENE The lips I might have tasted, rosy ripe as any cherry, How they pair off by the dozens when my memory goes back Across the current of the years aboard of Fancy's ferry, Which shuns the shores of What-We-Have and touches What-We-Lack. The girl I took t' singin'-school one night, who vowed she'd never Before walked with a feller 'thout her mother bein' by, I reckon that her temptin' mouth will haunt my dreams forever, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try! I recollect another girl, as chipper as a robin, Who rode beside me in a sleigh one night through snow an' sleet, An' both my hands I kept in use a guidin' good ol' Dobbin-- One didn't need them any mor'n a chicken needs four feet. Too scared was I to hold her in, or warm her cheeks with kisses,-- I know, now, she expected it, for once I heard her sigh-- To-day I'd like t' kick myself for these neglected blisses, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try. I never kissed Rebecca, she was sober as a Quaker, I never kissed Alvira, though I took her home one night, That city cousin of the Smiths, a Miss Myrtilla Baker, Though scores of opportunities slipped by me, left an' right. It makes me hate myself to-day when I on Fancy's ferry Have crossed the current of the years to olden days gone by, T' think of all the lips I've missed, ripe-red as topmost cherry, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try. [Footnote 6: Lippincott's Magazine.] THE WEDDIN' BY JENNIE BETTS HARTSWICK Well, it's over, it's _all_ over--bein' the last to leave I know _that_--and I declare, I'm that full of all the things we had to eat that John and me won't want any supper for a good hour yet, so I just ran in to tell you about it while it's on top of my mind. It's an everlastin' shame you had to miss it! One thing, though, you'll get a trayful of the good things sent in to you, I shouldn't wonder. I know there's loads left, for I happened to slip out to the kitchen for a drink of water--I was that _dry_ after all those salty nuts, and I didn't want to trouble 'em--and I saw just _heaps_ of things standin' round. Most likely you'll get a good, large plate of cake, not just a pinchin' little mite of a piece in a box. The boxes is real pretty, though, and they did look real palatial all stacked up on a table by the front door with a strange colored man, in white gloves like a pall-bearer, to hand 'em to you.