An Idyl of the Road

“So she’s here, your unknown Dulcinea, the lady you met on the train,
And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her again?”

“Of course,” he replied, “she would know me; there never was womankind yet
Forgot the effect she inspired. She excuses, but does not forget.”

“Then you told her your love?” asked the elder. The younger looked up with a smile:
“I sat by her side half an hour what else was I doing the while?

“What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,
And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to her eye?

“No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as the look,
And I held up herself to herself, that was more than she got from her book.”

“Young blood!” laughed the elder; “no...

June 4th! Do you know what that date means?
June 4th! By this air and these pines!
Well, only you know how I hate scenes,
These might be my very last lines!
For perhaps, sir, you’ll kindly remember
If some other things you’ve forgot
That you last wrote the 4th of december,
Just six months ago! from this spot;

From this spot, that you said was “the fairest
For once being held in my thought.”
Now, really I call that the barest
Of well, I won’t say what I ought!
For here I am back from my “riches,”
My “triumphs,” my “tours,” and all that;
And you’re not to be found in the ditches
Or temples of Poverty Flat!

From Paris we went for the season
To London, when Pa wired, “Stop.”
Mama says “his health” was the reason.
(I’ve heard that some th...

“Something characteristic,” eh?
Humph! I reckon you mean by that
Something that happened in our way,
Here at the crossin’ of Big Pine Flat.
Times aren’t now as they used to be,
When gold was flush and the boys were frisky,
And a man would pull out his battery
For anything maybe the price of whiskey.

Nothing of that sort, eh? That’s strange!
Why, I thought you might be diverted
Hearing how Jones of Red Rock Range
Drawed his “hint to the unconverted,”
And saying, “Whar will you have it?” shot
Cherokee Bob at the last debating!
What was the question I forgot,
But Jones didn’t like Bob’s way of stating.

Nothing of that kind, eh? You mean
Something milder? Let’s see! O Joe!
Tell to the stranger that little scene
Out of the “Babes in the W...

Know me next time when you see me, won’t you, old smarty?
Oh, I mean you, old figger-head, just the same party!
Take out your pensivil, d n you; sharpen it, do!
Any complaints to make? Lots of ’em one of ’em’s you.

You! who are you, anyhow, goin’ round in that sneakin’ way?
Never in jail before, was you, old blatherskite, say?
Look at it; don’t it look pooty? Oh, grin, and be d d to you, do!
But if I had you this side o’ that gratin,’ I’d just make it lively for you.

How did I get in here? Well what ’ud you give to know?
’Twasn’t by sneakin’ round where I hadn’t no call to go;
’Twasn’t by hangin’ round a-spyin’ unfortnet men.
Grin! but I’ll stop your jaw if ever you do that agen.

Why don’t you say suthin, blast you? Speak your mind if you dare.
Ain’t I a ba...

'Tis spent this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard
In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
Confiding Glow-worms, 'tis a night
Propitious to your earth-born light!
But, where the scattered stars are seen
In hazy straits the clouds between,
Each, in his station twinkling not,
Seems changed into a pallid spot.
The mountains against heaven's grave weight
Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
The air, as in a lion's den,
Is close and hot; and now and then
Comes a tired and sultry breeze
With a haunting and a panting,
Like the stifling of disease;
But the dews allay the heat,
And the silence makes it sweet.<...

Wot’s that you’re readin’? a novel? A novel! well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin’ such stuff ez that in
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you’re thin ez a knife.
Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life!

That’s my opinion o’ novels. And ez to their lyin’ round here,
They belong to the Jedge’s daughter the Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o’ pine and fir;
And his daughter well, she read novels, and that’s what’s the matter with her.

Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,
Alone in the cabin up ‘yer till she grew like a ghost, all white.
She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she w...