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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AS TOLL by JOHN BARKER

First Line: LOVELY MABEL, WERE YOU DREAMING?
Last Line: JUST FOR TOLL.
Subject(s): DREAMS; NIGHTMARES;

LOVELY Mabel, were you dreaming?
Glad the day you said to me,
Dancing eyes so brightly beaming,
"Give my love to dear Marie!"
What a strange exhilaration
To be bearer of your heart,
What a wonderful temptation
For a part.

For I have not tried to find her
Since you sent your love by me;
Day by day I think I'm blinder, --
Fruitless search, as you might see.
I wonder, if in sending,
If you choose your slave by chance,
What that twinkle was portending
In your glance?

Tell me, when I bear the treasure,
Would you very angry be
Should I keep a trifling measure
That was hardly meant for me?
For it's common in commissions
Some percentage of the whole
To extract from you patricians,
Just for toll.



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