Give way, I must fall a fearful length.

My doctors say they know the cause,
And they've gone to work with eager zest,
Probed and expounded with weighty straws,
And leeches attached to my troubled breast;
I fee them well, as attests my purse
But day after day I'm growing worse.

Though they have not yet touched the cause they knew,
And are wrangling over its direful flood,
They promise to build me better than new,
And stop the drain on my famished blood;
But lest they're careful while building the dam
They'll scoop out a grave for "Uncle Sam."




NAY, DO NOT ASK.

Nay, do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
Or if, mayhap, in other years to be,
A younger, fairer face than thine I know,
I'll love her more than thee.

What should it matter if I've loved before,
So that I love thee now, and love thee best?
What matters it that I should love again
If, first, the daisy-buds blow o'er thy breast?