Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/87

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XV.

It was not much she ever wrote;

Her fingers had good work to do;
Say, once a week a pretty note;
And very long it took her too.
And little more she read, I wis;
Just now and then a pictured sheet,
Besides those letters she would kiss
And croon for hours, they were so sweet.

XVI.

She had her friends too, blithe young girls,

Who whispered, babbled, laughed, caressed,
And romped and danced with dancing curls,
And gave our life a joyous zest.
But with this dullard, glum and sour,
Not one of all his fellow-men
Has ever passed a social hour;
We might be in some wild beast's den.

XVII.

This long tirade aroused the bed,

Who spoke in deep and ponderous bass,
Befitting that calm life he led,
As if firm-rooted in his place: