Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek jest a-bilin'
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.
I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey,

Chiquita ;

And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the cañon.

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Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita Buckled right down to her work, and, afore I could yell to her

rider,

Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing,

And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat, and a-driftin' to thunder!

Would ye b'lieve it? That night, that hoss, that 'ar filly,

Chiquita,

Walked herself into her stall, and stood there, all quiet and

dripping:

Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary a buckle of harness,

ΙΟ

Jest as she swam the Fork, that hoss, that ar' filly, Chiquita.

That's what I call a hoss! and

nevey?

- What did you say?— Oh, the

Drownded, I reckon, — leastways, he never kem back to deny it. Ye see the derned fool had no seat, ye couldn't have made him

a rider;

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And then, ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses—well, hosses is hosses!

THE AGED STRANGER

AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR

"I WAS with Grant" -the stranger said;
Said the farmer, "Say no more,
But rest thee here at my cottage porch,

For thy feet are weary and sore."

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'And, as I remarked before,

I was with Grant" "Nay, nay, I know,"
Said the farmer, "say no more:

"How fell he,

- with his face to the foe,

Upholding the flag he bore?

Oh, say not that my boy disgraced
The uniform that he wore!"

"I cannot tell," said the aged man,
"And should have remarked before,
That I was with Grant, in Illinois,

Some three years before the war."

Then the farmer spake him never a word,
But beat with his fist full sore
That aged man, who had worked for Grant
Some three years before the war.

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EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

1841-1887

A GRADUATE of Yale, a professor of English literature at the University of California, a man of unusual poetic gifts, Sill died when he seemed on the threshold of a more than ordinary literary career. He left behind a volume of essays and several volumes of verse. The Venus of Milo is his longest and best-known poem. He was born at Windsor, Connecticut, and died at Cleveland, Ohio.

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

THE royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool:
The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

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"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; But for our blunders

Oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

“Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

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Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool, And walked apart, and murmured low, "Be merciful to me, a fool!”

THE FUTURE

WHAT may we take into the vast Forever?

That marble door

Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,

No fame-wreathed crown we wore,
No garnered lore.

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?

No gold, no gains

Of all our toiling: in the life immortal

No hoarded wealth remains,

Nor gilds, nor stains.

Naked from out that far abyss behind us
We entered here:

No word came with our coming to remind us
What wondrous world was near,

No hope, no fear.

Into the silent, starless Night before us,

Naked we glide;

No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,

No comrade at our side,

No chart, no guide.

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow,
Our footsteps fare:

The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow

His love alone is there,

No curse, no care.

EVE'S DAUGHTER

I WAITED in the little sunny room:

The cool breeze waved the window-lace at play, The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,

And out upon the bay

I watched the wheeling sea birds go and come.

"Such an old friend, - she would not make me stay

While she bound up her hair.” I turned, and lo, Danaë in her shower! and fit to slay

All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:

Gold hair, that streamed away

As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.

"She would not make me wait" but well I know

She took a good half hour to loose and lay

Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!

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