BY JOHN H. YATES.
Lay by the weekly, Betsey, it's old like you and I,
And read the morning's daily, with its pages scarcely dry.
While you and I were sleepin', they were printing them to-day,
In the city by the ocean, several hundred miles away.
"How'd I get it?" Bless you, Betsey, you needn't doubt and laugh;
It didn't drop down from the clouds nor come by telegraph;
I got it by the lightning mail we've read about you know,
The mail that Jonathan got up about a month ago.
We farmers livin' 'round the hill went to the town to-day
To see the fast mail catch the bags that hung beside the way;
Quick as a flash from thundering clouds, whose tempest swept the sky,
The bags were caught on board the train as it went roarin' by.
We are seein' many changes in our fast declinin' years;
Strange rumors now are soundin' in our hard-of-hearin' ears.
Ere the sleep that knows no wakin' comes to waft us o'er the stream,
Some great power may be takin' all the self-conceit from steam.
Well do we remember, Betsey, when the post-man carried mails,
Ridin' horseback through the forest 'long the lonely Indian trails,
How impatiently we waited—we were earnest lovers then—
For our letters comin' slowly, many miles through wood and glen.
Many times, you know, we missed them—for the post-man never came—
Then, not knowin' what had happened, we did each the other blame;
Long those lover quarrels lasted, but the God who melts the proud
Brought our strayin' hearts together and let sunshine through the cloud.
Then at last the tidings reached us that the faithful post-man fell
Before the forest savage with his wild terrific yell,
And your letters lay and moldered, while the sweet birds sang above,
And I was savin' bitter things about a woman's love.
Long and tedious were the journeys—few and far between, the mails,
In the days when we were courtin'—when we thrashed with wooden flails;
Now the white winged cars are flyin' long the shores of inland seas.
And younger lovers read their letters 'mid luxury and ease.
We have witnessed many changes in our three-score years and ten;
We no longer sit and wonder at the discoveries of men;
In the shadow of life's evenin' we rejoice that our dear boys
Are not called to meet the hardships that embittered half our joys.