Point Lace and Diamonds | Page 9

hours away.
Their voices
through the quiet

Of haunted Catskill break;
Or rouse those dreamy
dryads,
The nymphs of Echo Lake.
The hands we've led through Germans,
And squeezed, perchance, of
yore,
Now deftly grasp the bridle,
The mallet, and the oar.
The
eyes that wrought our ruin
On other men look down;
We're but the
broken play-things
They've left behind in town.

Oh, happy Gran'dame Nature,
Whose wandering children come
To
light with happy faces
The dear old mother-home,
Be tender with
our darlings,
Each merry maiden bears
Such love and longing with
her--
Men's lives are wrapped in theirs.
THE "STAY-AT-HOME'S" PÆAN.
The evenings are damper and colder;
The maples and sumacs are red,

The wild Equinoctial is coming,
The flowers in the garden are dead.

The steamers are all overflowing,
The railroads are all loaded
down,
And the beauties we've sighed for all Summer
Are hurrying
back into town.
They come from the banks of the Hudson,
From the sands of the
Branch, and Cape May,
From the parlors of bright Saratoga,
From
the dash of Niagara's spray.
From misty, sea-salt Narragansett,

From Mahopac's magical lake.
They come on their way to new
conquests,
They're longing for more hearts to break.
E'en Newport is dull and deserted--
Its billowy beaches no more

Made bright with sweet, ocean-kissed faces,
Love's beacon lights set
on the shore.
The rugged White Hills of New Hampshire,
The last
of their lovers have seen,
The echoes are left to their slumbers,
No
dainty feet thread the ravine.
On West Point's delightful parade ground
Sighs many a hapless cadet,

Who's basked through the long days of Summer
In the smiles of a
city coquette;
And now the incipient hero
Beholds his enchantress
depart,
With the spoils of her lightly-won triumph,
His buttons, as
well as his heart.
Come, dry your eyes, Grandmother Nature,
They care not a whit for
your woe;
The city is calling her daughters--
We can't spare them
longer, they know--

Our beautiful, tender-voiced darlings,
With the
blue of the deep Summer skies,
And the glow of the bright Summer

sunshine,
Entrapped in their mischievous eyes.
We know their expenses are awful,
That horror unspeakable fills

The souls of unfortunate fathers
Who foot up their dressmaker's bills.

That they'd barter their souls for French candy;
That diamonds ruin
their peace;
That they rave over middle-aged actors,
And in other
respects are--well, geese.
We laugh at them, boys, but we love them,
For under their nonsense
we know
They've hearts that are honest and loving,
And souls that
are whiter than snow.
So out with that bottle of Roederer!
Large
glasses, boys! Up goes the cork!
All charged? To the belles of
creation,
The glorious girls of New York.
EIGHT HOURS.
"Sign the petition!" "Write my name!"
"She said, ask me!"--oh, she's
fooling;
Where do you think a girl like me
Could find the time for
so much schooling?
Why, I've been here since I was eight or so--

That's ten years now--and it seems like longer;
The hours are from
eight till six--you see
It wears one out--I once was stronger.
"A bad
cough!" oh, that's nothing, sir;
It comes from the dust, and bending
over.
It hurts me sometimes--no, not now.
"This!" why, a flower, a
bit of clover.
I picked it up as I came to work--
It grew in the grass
in some one's airy,
Where it stood, and nodded all alone
Like a little
green-cloaked, white-capped fairy.
"Fond of flowers!" I like
them--yes--
Though, goodness knows, I don't see many--
I'd have to
buy them--they cost so much--
And I never can spare a single penny.

"Go to the park!"--how can I, sir?
The only day that I have is
Sunday;
And then there's always so much to do
That before I know
it, almost, it's Monday.

Like it sir, like it!--why, when I think
Of the
woods, and the brook with the cattle drinking-- I was country-bred,
sir--my heart swells so
That I--there, there, what's the use of thinking!

If I could write, sir--"make a cross,
And let you write my name

below it"--
No, please; I'm ashamed I can't, sometimes,--
I don't
want all the girls to know it.
And what's the use of it, anyway?

They'll just say shortly, with careless faces,
"If you're not suited,
you'd better leave"--
There's plenty of girls to fill our places.

They're kind enough to their own, no doubt--
Our head just worships
his own young daughter,
Just my age, sir--she's gone away
To
spend the Summer across the water.
But us--oh, well, we're only
"hands,"
Do you think to please us they'll bear losses?
No, not a
cent's worth--ah, you'll see--
I'm a working girl, sir, and I know
bosses.
SLEEPING BEAUTY.
A PARABLE.
You remember the nursery legend--
We heard in the early days,
Ere
we knew of the world's deception
Or walked in its dusty ways,
And
dwelt in a land of the fairies
Where the air was golden haze--
Of the maid, o'er whom the Summers
Of youth passed, like a swell

Of melody all unbroken,
Till evil wrought its spell,
And
dream-embroidered curtains
Of slumber round her fell.
The wood grew up round her castle,
The centuries o'er it rolled,

Wrapping its slumb'rous turrets
In clinging robes of mould,
And her
name became a legend
By Winter fire-sides told.
Till the Prince came over the mountains
In the morning-glow of
youth;
The forest sank before him
Like wrong before the truth,

And he passed the dim old portal,
With its warders so uncouth,
Woke with