Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-04-05
JANE REED.
A Pennsylvania Ballad.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

h.
If could forget she said, sfcrget, and
begin again
We see so dull at the time, and, looking
back, SO plain
There's quiet that's worse, think, than
many spoken strife
And it's wrong that one mistake should
change the whole of life.
There's John, forever the same, SO steady,
sober, and mild
he never storms as man who never cried
as child;
Perhaps my ways are harsh, but if he would
seem to care,
Thece'd be fewer swallowed words, and
lighter load to bear.
Here, Cherry she's found me out, the
calf raised in the spring,
And likely heifer she's grown, the foolish,
soft-eyed thing
Just the even color like, without dapple
Oh, Cherry, bend down your head, and let
me cry on your neck
The poor dumb beast she is, she never can
know nor tell,
And it seems to do ne good, the very shame
of the SPELL
So old a woman and hard, and Joel so old
man.
But the thoughts of the old go on as the
thoughts Of the young began!
Its guessing that wastes the heart, far
worse than the surest fate,
If l knew he had thought of me, I could
quietly work and wait;
And then when either, at last, on bed of
death should lie,
Why, one might speak the truth, and the
other hear and diel"
She leaned on the heifers neck; the dry
leaves fell from the boughs,
And over the sweet late grass of the meadow
strayed the COWS;
The golden dodder meshed the cardinal
There was autumn haze in the air, and sum
light low on the hill.
I've somehow missed my time" she said
to herself, and sighed:
"What girls are free to hope, steady
woman must hide
But the need outstays the chance; it makes
me cry and laugh,
To think that the only thing | can talk to
now is calf?'
A step came down from the hill: she did
not turn, or rise;
There was something in her heart that saw
without the eyes.
She heard the foot delay, as doubling to
stay or go:
sis the heifer for sale?" he said. She
sternly answered, "No!"
She lifted her head as she spake: their eyes
moment met,
And her heart repeated the words: If
could only forgetp'
He turned little away, but her lowered
eyes could see
His hand, as he picked the bark from the
trunk of a hickory-tree.
"Why can't we be friendly, Jane ?'' his
words came, strange and slow;
g You seem to bear me grudge, SO long,
and SO long ago.
You were gay and free with the rest, but
always SO shy of me,
That, before my freedom came, saw that it
couldn't be-"
"Joell' was all she cried, as their chances
And sudden rose effaced her pallor of age
and pain.
He picked at the hickory bark: ''It's
curious thing to say;
But I'm lonely since Phoebe died and the
girls are married away.
'That's why these thoughts come back:
I'm a little too old for pride,
And I never could understand how love
should be all one side;
7 would answer itself, I thought; and time
would show me how
But it didn't come so, then, and it doesn' t
seem SO, now"
Joel, it came so, then !'-and her voice
was thick with tears:
" A hope for single day, and a bite,
shame for years
He snapped the ribbon of bark, he turned
from the hickory tree:
Jane, look ne once in the face, and say
you thought Of meE'
She looked and feebly laughed: "It's
comfort to know the truth,
Though the chance was thrown away in the
blind mistake of youth"
"And a greater comfort, Jane, he said,
with tender smile,
To find the chance you have lost, and keep
it a little while"
She rose as he spake the words: the petted
heifer thrust
Her muzzle between the twane, with an
animals strange mistrust:
But over the creatures neck he drew her to
bis breast:
"a horse is never SO old but it pulls with
another best ~
It's enough to know" she said to remem-
Der, not forget"
Nay, nay: for the rest of life we'll pay
each others debt =!
She had no will to resist, so kindly was she
drawn,
And she sadly said, at last, But what will
become of John ?"
April atlantic.
Kite-Flying in Japan.
A letter from Nagasaki, Japan, print