Weep ye not, ye children dear,

That as yet ye are unborn:
For each sorrow and each tear

Makes the father's heart to mourn.

Patient be a short time to it,

Unproduced, and known to none;
If your father cannot do it,

By your mother 'twill be done.

SCENE: St. Petersburg. Period: the present time. A ballroom in the winter palace of the prince---. The ladies in character costumes and masks. The gentlement in official dress and unmasked, with the exception of six tall figures in scarlet kaftans, who are treated with marked distinction as they move here and there among the promenaders. Quadrille music throughout the dialogue.

Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane!
How you stole in the room (where I lay so ill)
In your nurse's cap and linen cuffs,
And took my hand and said with a smile:
"You are not so ill -- you'll soon be well."
And how the liquid thought of your eyes
Sank in my eyes like dew that slips
Into the heart of a flower.
Dear Jane! the whole McNeely fortune
Could not have bought your care of me,
By day and night, and night and day;
Nor paid for your smile, nor the warmth of your soul,
In your little hands laid on my brow.

Now up and down the siding brown
The great black crows are flyin',
And down below the spur, I know,
Another `milker's' dyin';
The crops have withered from the ground,
The tank's clay bed is glarin',
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
For I have gone past carin' --
Past worryin' or carin',
Past feelin' aught or carin';
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
For I have gone past carin'.

Through Death and Trouble, turn about,
Through hopeless desolation,

Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own, to boot.

Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own, to boot.

What it must be like to be an angel
or a squirrel, we can imagine sooner.

The last time we go to bed good,
they are there, lying about darkness.

They dandle us once too often,
these friends who become our enemies.

Suddenly one day, their juniors
are as old as we yearn to be.

They get wrinkles where it is better
smooth, odd coughs, and smells.

It is grotesque how they go on
loving us, we go on loving them

The effrontery, barely imaginable,
of having caused us.And of how.

Their lives: surely

I’m pardoned out. Again the stars
Shine on me with their myriad eyes.
So long I’ve peered ‘twixt iron bars,
I’m awed by this expanse of skies.
The world is wider than I thought,
And yet ‘tis not so wide, I know,
But into its remotest spot
My tale of shame can go.

I’m pardoned out. Old Father Time
Who seemed to halt in horror, when
I strained my manhood by a crime,
With steady step moves on again,
And through the black appalling night,
That walled me in a gloom accurst,
The wonder of the morning light

So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood
A while as mute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:—
"I see thou know'st what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult,

Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,
And on that high authority had believed,
And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean
Andrew and Simon, famous after known,
With others, though in Holy Writ not named—
Now missing him, their joy so lately found,
So lately found and so abruptly gone,
Began to doubt, and doubted many days,
And, as the days increased, increased their doubt.