[Illustration: HOW, WE SWUNG UPON THE GRAPE-VINE DOWN BY THE GENESEE, AND I CAUGHT THE SPECKLED TROUT FOR YOU, WHILE YOU GATHERED FLOWERS FOR ME]
How our young hearts grew together
Until they beat as one;
Distrust it could not enter;
Cares and fears were none.
All my love was yours, dear Mary,
'Twas boyish love, I know;
But I ne'er have loved as then I loved—
Twenty years ago.
How we pictured out the future—
The golden coming years,
And saw no cloud in all our sky,
No gloomy mist of tears;
But ah—how vain are human hopes!
The angels came—and O—
They bore my darling up to heaven—
Twenty years ago.
I will not tell—I cannot tell—
What anguish wrung my soul;
But a silent grief is on my heart
Though the years so swiftly roll;
And I cannot shake it off, May,
This lingering sense of woe,
Though I try to drown the memory
Of twenty years ago.
I am fighting life's stern battle, May,
With all my might and main;
But a seat by you and mother there
Is the dearest prize to gain;
And I know you both are near me,
Whatever winds may blow,
For I feel your spirits cheer me
Like twenty years ago.
BETZKO
A HUNGARIAN LEGEND
Stibor had led in many a fight,
And broken a score of swords
In furious frays and bloody raids
Against the Turkish hordes.
And Sigismund, the Polish king,
Who joined the Magyar bands,
Bestowed upon the valiant knight
A broad estate of lands.