AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6383, 4 December 1907, Page 5

AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

Marv, Mary, quite contrary, -How does your garden grow? ' With silver bells and cockleshells All standing in a row.

(By W-LL-W SH-K-SP-R.y

Sooth yc, fair maid, whoco mind doth

vseom to bo ■ 5 .. Contrariwise, and who hath been yclept Mary, and is ofttimes bespoken as Marie, And* who betimes the while at boarding

fobooi thou wert Didst write thyself Mayrye, I fain would o-sk. How doth ihy little plot of ground whereBocomary, sago, and marjoram and thyme . Shouldst sprout and bud and bloom and

bear , IIov: doth it grow?* What? Odeblocd !

Nay! Not with eilvory boils whose mel-

low tuno • ■ Doth even so out-clink the cnnklccs cockleshells!' (BY EDG-S'TIL-N X>-E.) Look at Mary in her patch—

Garden patch— Dressed her growing crop to match—

What a match! > { The potatoes making eyes as she swiftly, softly Rios As an angel cleaves the azure oer the heights of paradise, While the corn pricks up its ears a© fair Mary’s step it hears, And the turnips turn to watch her as with gentlo grace she nears. Till she stops above the beats And my heart all madly beat®— O, it beats, beats, beats, beats, beats,, beats, beats, beats! ' ■ (BY A. C. SW-NB-BN.) ‘

So I prithee, fair maid in thy garden, With thy hoes and thy hoeo and thy hose—(Should I not mention those, beg your pardon.) Can von tell me to-day how it grows? With its serrated bolls made of silver. With ita cockleshells all in a row. Witff i-te—-bilver, dilvor, filver, guver, hilver, jiiver, kilver, railver, nilver, pilver, vilver, vrilver— Ah, there’s no rhyme for that—let it go! (BY W-LTWH-TM-N.) I salute you, Mary, in the garden. With your hoe and rake and trowel, And the smudge on your cheeks, and your

Looking Ecanningly over the back fence

to sec Who is watching.' I salute the com and

onions And beets and radishes and all those things. T am one with the tomato and the lettuce And ray heart is attuned to the soft

vibration of the pease, (Traubol, be sure to put this in your memoirs.) I salute thee, contrary one— Contrariness, thy name is woman, just as stubbornness is the synonym of man. For we arc all puffs of breath and heart-

beats of infinity. And even now I feel a sympathy and a

pang • In unieon with my unknown brother Who dmbs his toe on Jupiter Or gets .bis feet wot on the Milky Way— But, as saying. Is your garden doing any good this summer?- r (Note for Traubel; Talk to mo about this.) —Chicago "Evening Post."