ST. VALENTINE.
The girl's a slender thing and fair, With dimpled cheek and eyes ashine; The youth is tall, with bashful air. Heigho! a fond and foolish pair— The day is yours, St. Valentine.
He says: "My heart will constant prove, Since every beat of it is thine; The sweetest joy of life is love." The birds are mating in the grove— The day is yours, St. Valentine.
What matter that the wind blows chill Through leafless tree and naked vine, That snowdrifts linger on the hill, When warm love makes the pulses thrill? The day is yours, St. Valentine.
TWO JUNE NIGHTS.
A red rose in my lady's hair, A white rose in her fingers, A wild bird singing low, somewhere, A song that pulses, lingers. The sound of dancing and of mirth, The fiddle's merry chiming, A smell of earth, of fresh, warm earth, And honeysuckle climbing; My lady near, yet far away— Ah, lonely June of yesterday!
A big white night of velvet sky, And Milky Way a-gleaming, The fragrant blue smoke drifting by From camp-fire brightly beaming; The stillness of the Northland far— God's solitudes of splendor— My road a trail, my chart a star. Wind, 'mong the balsams slender, Sing low: O glad June of to-day, My lady's near, though far away!