The Writings of Bret Harte :: :: University of Virginia Library

315

From “orange groves and fields of balm”
These loving lines I send,
But first you really ought to know
The feelings of your friend.

For when it 's winter where you live,
The weather here 's like June;
The “Season's Choir” Thomson sings,
In fact, is out of tune.

All day at ninety-eight degrees
The mercury has stood,
Without a figure I may say,
I'm “in a melting mood.”

The fields are parched and so 's my lips—
I quaff at every spring;
So dry a “summer,” Trem, my dear,
“Two swallows” could not bring.

You know “two swallows do not make
It summer”—but methinks
The summer in this latitude
Is made of many drinks.

The politics, I grieve to say,
I find in great confusion—
For like the earth the people have
A daily revolution.

316

Their manners to a stranger here,
Is stranger yet to see;
Last night in going to a ball
A ball went into me.

I 'm fond of reading, as you know,
But then it was a sin
To be obliged against my will,
To take a Bullet-in.

They cried, “DIOS Y LIBERTAD!”
And then pitched into me;
I hate to hear a sacred name
Used with such “liberty.”

I should have said to you before,
But every method fails,
For since they have impressed the men,
Of course, they 've stopped the males.