Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/165

 ONE FOREST-FIRE. 159

While wearily, with constant drip, The streamlet wet its rocky lip.

I folded up my hands to say, When from the nearest shadow stole An answer to my troubled soul ; And by the moonbeams scant and pale I heard the faithful nightingale : Like silver notes from blue-bells swung, Like tender tones of human tongue, Like golden cymbals clanging sweet, Like castanets on fairies feet, Came forth that welcome, strangely dear, To soothe my sorrow-freighted ear. Ah, then I knew I had one friend, Whose love with sunshine did not end.
 * Friendship is only for a day,&quot;

��ONE FOREST-FIRE.

IT S easy to read it. It s only a word, Jest a name amongst others You ve heard Of the fire in the forest ? not much, but you see, When you read &quot; Simon Fodder,&quot; that s me. And it wa n t no great shakes of a shanty, I know, But I tell you, I hated to see the thing go; For one kind o clings to a ruff he has raised, And a cabin built out of the trees he has blazed. But the old house is nothin, I soon let it go; Tain t that, that upsets me and worrits me so;

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