Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

When half a woman, half a child,

Thy very artlessness beguiled,

And folly’s self seem’d wise in thee.

I too can smile, when o’er that hour

The lights of memory backward stream,

Yet feel the while that manhood’s power

Is vainer than my boyhood’s dream.

Years have pass’d on, and left their trace

Of graver care and deeper thought;

And unto me the calm, cold face