My dame should dress in cheap attire;
(Good, heavy silks are never
dear;)—
I own perhaps I might desire
Some
shawls of true cashmere,—
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.
I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop
and stare;
An easy gait—two, forty-five—
Suits
me; I do not care;—
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.
Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians and Raphaels three
or four,—
I love so much their style and tone,—
One
Turner, and no more
(A landscape,—foreground golden
dirt;
The sunshine painted with a squirt).
Of books but few,—some fifty
score
For daily use, and bound for
wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;—
Some
little luxury there
Of red morocco’s gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.
Busts, cameos, gems,—such things
as these,
Which others often show for
pride,
I value for their power to please,
And
selfish churls deride;—
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Wealth’s wasteful tricks I will
not learn,
Nor ape the glittering upstart
fool;—
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But
all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,—
I ask but one recumbent chair.
Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas’
golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I
shall not miss them much.—
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.
(A Parenthesis.)
I can’t say just how many walks she and I had taken together before this one. I found the effect of going out every morning was decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples, the places for which were just marked when she came, played, shadowy, in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning to me from the schoolhouse-steps.
I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. At any rate, if I should try to report all that I said during the first half-dozen walks we took together, I fear that I might receive a gentle hint from my friends the publishers, that a separate volume, at my own risk and expense, would be the proper method of bringing them before the public.