Next door the summer roses bloom
And breathe their hearts out day by day
To please a gentle gardener whom
'Twere happiness to thus obey:
For her each rose a fragrance gives
That roses grudge to common labour,
And there, next door, among them lives
My neighbour.
I watch her in her garden fair,
And think what joy my life would bless
Could she and I but wander there,
A shepherd and a shepherdess,
As blithe as those of ancient myth
That danced and sang to pipe and tabor:
Who would not thus be happy with
My neighbour?
Blue eyes, and hair of sunny brown,
A form of such exceeding grace,
And features in whose smile and frown
Such tender beauty I can trace
That here to sketch her free from flaw
Defies the pencil of a Faber,
And yet I yearn so much to draw
My neighbour!
I'm keeping one commandment--an
Epitome of all the ten--
So if I, when my life began,
Was born in sin like other men,
To innocence that shames the dove,
I've mellowed since I was a babe, or
How could I so devoutly love
My neighbour?
* * * * *
[Illustration: _First Young Wife._ "Do you find it more economical,
dear, to do your own cooking?"
_Second Young Wife._ "Oh, certainly. My husband doesn't eat half so much
as he did!"]
* * * * *
THE SNUB CONNUBIAL.--_Loving Wife._ "Charles, dear, I wish you would put
down that horrid novel and talk to me; I feel so dull; and--oh, Charles!
my foot's asleep----" _Charles._ "Hush--sh! my dear, you might wake it!"
* * * * *
THE OLDEST AND THE SHORTEST DRAMA IN THE WORLD.--_He._ "Will you?"
_She._ "Oh! I do not know!" (_Which "know" meant that she said "yes._")
* * * * *