MY NEIGHBOUR
Next door the summer roses bloom
And breathe their hearts out day by day
To please a gentle gardener whom
'Twere happiness to thus obey:
For her each rose a fragrance gives
That roses grudge to common labour,
And there, next door, among them lives
My neighbour.
I watch her in her garden fair,
And think what joy my life would bless
Could she and I but wander there,
A shepherd and a shepherdess,
As blithe as those of ancient myth
That danced and sang to pipe and tabor:
Who would not thus be happy with
My neighbour?
Blue eyes, and hair of sunny brown,
A form of such exceeding grace,
And features in whose smile and frown
Such tender beauty I can trace
That here to sketch her free from flaw
Defies the pencil of a Faber,
And yet I yearn so much to draw
My neighbour!
I'm keeping one commandment—an
Epitome of all the ten—
So if I, when my life began,
Was born in sin like other men,
To innocence that shames the dove,
I've mellowed since I was a babe, or
How could I so devoutly love
My neighbour?
First Young Wife. "Do you find it more economical, dear, to do your own cooking?"
Second Young Wife. "Oh, certainly. My husband doesn't eat half so much as he did!"
The Snub Connubial.—Loving Wife. "Charles, dear, I wish you would put down that horrid novel and talk to me; I feel so dull; and—oh, Charles! my foot's asleep——" Charles. "Hush—sh! my dear, you might wake it!"
The Oldest and the Shortest Drama in the World.—He. "Will you?" She. "Oh! I do not know!" (Which "know" meant that she said "yes.")