“Sas agapo sas agapo,”
He sang beneath her lattice.
“’Sas agapo’?”
she murmured—“O,
I wonder, now, what that
is!”
Was she less fair that she did bear
So light a load of knowledge?
Are loving looks got out of books,
Or kisses taught in college?
Of woman’s lore give me no more
Than how to love,—in
many
A tongue men brawl: she speaks them
all
Who says “I love,”
in any.
THE WISE AND GOOD.
“O father, I saw at the church as
I passed
The populace gathered in numbers so vast
That they couldn’t get in; and their
voices were low,
And they looked as if suffering terrible
woe.”
“’Twas the funeral, child,
of a gentleman dead
For whom the great heart of humanity bled.”
“What made it bleed, father, for
every day
Somebody passes forever away?
Do the newspaper men print a column or
more
Of every person whose troubles are o’er?”
“O, no; they could never do that—and
indeed,
Though printers might print it, no reader
would read.
To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must
be borne,
But ’tis only the Wise and the Good
that all mourn.”
“That’s right, father dear,
but how can our eyes
Distinguish in dead men the Good and the
Wise?”
“That’s easy enough to the
stupidest mind:
They’re poor, and in dying leave
nothing behind.”
“Seest thou in mine eye, father,
anything green?
And takest thy son for a gaping marine?
Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and
the Good
Who are poor and lamented to babes in
the wood.”
And that horrible youth as I hastened
away
Was building a wink that affronted the
day.
