Life's little day is fading fast; upon the mountain's brow the sinking sun is gleaming red; the shadows lengthen now; the twilight hush comes on apace, and soon the evening star will light us to those chambers dim where dreamless sleepers are. And when the curfew bell is rung, that calls us all to rest, and we have left all worldly things, at Azrael's behest, O may some truthful mourner rise, and say of you or me: "Gee whiz! I'm sorry that he's dead! He was a honey bee! Whate'er his job he did his best; he put on all his steam, in every stunt he had to do he was a four-horse team. He thought that man was placed on earth to help his fellowguys; he never wore a frosty face, and balked at weeping eyes; the hard luck pilgrim always got a handout at his door, and any friend could help himself to all he had in store; he tried to make his humble home the gayest sort of camp, till Death, the king of bogies, came and slugged him in the lamp. I don't believe a squarer guy existed in the land, and Death was surely off his base when this galoot was canned!" _They All Come Back_ The stars will come back to the azure vault when the clouds are all blown away; and the sun will come back when the night is done, and give us another day; the cows will come back from the meadows lush, and the birds to their trysting tree, but the money I paid to a mining shark will never come back to me! The leaves will come back to the naked boughs, and the flowers to the frosty brae; the spring will come back like a blooming bride, and the breezes that blow in May; and the joy will come back to the stricken heart, and laughter and hope and glee, but the money I blew for some mining stock will never come back to me! _The Cussing Habit_ The jackal is a beastly beast; and when it hankers for a feast, it has no use for nice fresh meat; the all-fired fool would rather eat some animal that died last year; and so the jackal, far and near, is shunned by self-respecting brutes, and slugged with rocks, and bricks, and boots. And men whose language is decayed, who make profanity a trade, are like the jackal of the wild, that hunts around for things defiled. In all your rounds you'll never find a healthy, clean and gentle mind possessed by any son of wrath whose language needs a Turkish bath. On great occasions there's excuse for turning ring-tailed cuss-words loose; the Father of his Country swore at Monmouth, and then cussed some more; that patient soul, the Man of Uz, with boils so thick he couldn't buzz, ripped off some language rich and brown, until old Bildad called him down. Great men, beneath some awful stroke let loose remarks that fairly smoke, and we forgive them as we write the story of their deeds of might. But little men, who swear, and swear, and thus pollute our common air, are foul and foolish as the frogs that trumpet in their native bogs. _John Bull_