And she with me, so cold and coy,
Seemed like a maid bereft of sense;
But in the crowd, all life and joy,
And full of blushful impudence.
She married,—well, a woman needs
Someone, her life and love to share,—
And little cares sprang up like weeds
And played around her elbow-chair.
Years rolled by—and I, content,
Trimmed my own lamp, and kept it bright,
Till age's touch, my hair besprent
With rays and gleams of silver light.
And then it chanced I took the book
Which she perused in days gone by;
And as I read, such passion shook,
That, I needs must surely cry.
For, here and there, her love was writ,
In old, half-faded pencil-signs,
As if she yielded—bit by bit—
Her heart in dots and underlines.
Ah, silvered fool, too late you look!
I know it; but let me here record
This maxim: Lend no girl a book
Unless you read it afterward!
—F. S. Cozzens.
130
We should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower; she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
—Colton.