When we three meet? Ah! friend of mine
Whose verses well and flow as wine,—
My thirsting fancy thou dost fill
With draughts delicious, sweeter still
Since tasted by those lips of thine.
I pledge thee, through the chill sunshine
Of autumn, with a warmth divine,
Thrilled through as only I shall thrill
When we three meet.
I pledge thee, if we fast or dine,
We yet shall loosen, line by line,
Old ballads, and the blither trill
Of our-time singers—for there will
Be with us all the Muses nine
When we three meet.
"THE LITTLE MAN IN THE TINSHOP"
When I was a little boy, long ago,
And spoke of the theater as the "show,"
The first one that I went to see,
Mother's brother it was took me—
(My uncle, of course, though he seemed to be
Only a boy—I loved him so!)
And ah, how pleasant he made it all!
And the things he knew that I should know!—
The stage, the "drop," and the frescoed wall;
The sudden flash of the lights; and oh,
The orchestra, with its melody,
And the lilt and jingle and jubilee
Of "The Little Man in the Tinshop"!