Good-bye! once more,--and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story,--
And say, besides,--we love too well
Our mother's soil, our father's glory!
When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had
been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited,
as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up.
The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write
verses. At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined
to try again. So when some professional friends of his called him
up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular "freshet" of
soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these
verses. He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of
which the only one he remembered was this: that he had rather
write a single line which one among them should think worth
remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams.
It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy
then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious;
however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so
long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a
kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day.
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