Page:Masterpieces of American Humor (Little Blue Book 959).djvu/5



Huge silver snow-peaks, white as wool,
 * Huge, sleek, fat steers knee-deep in grass,

And belly-deep, and belly full,
 * Their flower beds one fragrant mass

Of flowers, grass tall-born and grand,
 * Where flowers chase the flying snow!

Oh, high held land in God's right hand,
 * Delicious, dreamful Idaho!

We rode the rolling cow-sown hills,
 * That bearded cattleman and I;

Below us laughed the blossomed rills,
 * Above, the dappled clouds flew by.

We talked. The topic? Guess. Why, sir,
 * Three-fourths of all men's time they keep

To talk, to think, to be of HER;
 * The other fourth they give to sleep.

To learn what he might know, or how,
 * I laughed all constancy to scorn.

"Behold yon happy, changeful cow!
 * Behold this day, all storm at morn,

Yet now 'tis changed by cloud and sun;
 * Yea, all things changethe heart, the head;

Behold on earth there is not one
 * That changeth not in love," I said.

He drew a glass, as if to scan
 * The steeps for steers; raised it and sighed.