Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/25

 HOW CAN WE HELP IT? 17

��HOW CAN WE HELP IT ?

��BY REV. LEANDER S. CO AN.

��Do we all have to lie just a little?

It will seem so if you try Sometime to render a reason

When you cannot give reasons why. Mrs. B. comes in with her baby,

And good Mr. B. comes, too, To have th^ir partial opinions

Corroborated by you.


 * ' Now isn't the darling pretty ? "

And he is, to a mother's eyes, — But you have not the yearning

Which the most of that beauty supplies. But you must be a brute, to tell her

Honestly, truthful and square, That you see no marvel of beauty

In a tangle of tow-colored hair.

And tough farmer John (with his cattle)

With simple sincerity bold, Wants to confirm his opinion

By what he is sure you hold. And you must allow hiin to think so

By some sort of innocent crook, Or thereafter and forever

Be blotted out of his book.

Then the scribbler calls with his verses '

And reads them all over to you ; And after you listen, how easy

To smile with delight, that he's through. And if you edit a paper,

And a roll of the stuff comes in By the hand of an old subscriber,

You just have to listen, and grin.

Then there comes the rub of the matter,

To give him a reason why The stuff do'n't appear in your columns

And not tell a sort of a lie. Or. the good parson quotes from his sermon,

As dull as a drum, and as dry ; — Now wound the kind heart of the parson

If you can, with the real reason why.

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