ROMANCIN'.



I' b'en a-kindo musin', as the feller says, and I'm
About o' the conclusion that they ain't no better time,
When you come to cipher on it, than the times we used to know
When we swore our first "dog-gone-it" sorto solem'-like and low!

You git my idy, do you?--_Little_ tads, you understand--
Jes' a wishin' thue and thue you that you on'y was a _man_.--
Yit here I am, this minute, even forty, to a day,
And fergittin' all that's in it, wishin' jes' the other way!

I hain't no hand to lectur' on the times, er dimonstrate
Whur the trouble is, er hector and domineer with Fate,--
But when I git so flurried, and so pestered-like and blue,
And so rail owdacious worried, let me tell you what I do!--

I jes' gee-haw the hosses, and unhook the swingle-tree,
Whur the hazel-bushes tosses down their shadders over me,
And I draw my plug o' navy, and I climb the fence, and set
Jes' a-thinkin' here, 'y gravy! till my eyes is wringin'-wet!

Tho' I still kin see the trouble o' the _present_, I kin see--
Kindo like my sight was double--all the things that _used to be_;
And the flutter o' the robin, and the teeter o' the wren
Sets the willer branches bobbin "howdy-do" thum Now to Then!