For what they have squandered, but cannot retrieve.

Those hearts of ours -- how strong! how strong!
Let a thousand sorrows around them throng,
They can bear them all, and a thousand more,
And they're stronger then than they were before.

Those hearts of ours -- how weak! how weak!
But a single word of unkindness speak,
Like a poisoned shaft, like a viper's fang,
That one slight word leaves a life-long pang.

Those hearts of ours -- but I've said enough,
As I find that my rhyme grows rude and rough;
I'll rest me now, but I'll come again
Some other day, to resume my strain.




---- Their Story Runneth Thus



Two little children played among the flowers,
Their mothers were of kin, tho' far apart;
The children's ages were the very same
E'en to an hour -- and Ethel was her name,
A fair, sweet girl, with great, brown, wond'ring eyes
That seemed to listen just as if they held