Her Photograph. loi 



HER PHOTOGRAPHS 



A picture of a dark-eyed girl 



With pensive, thoughtful air, 

 Whose pure sweet face looked from beneath 



Its frame of misty hair. 



My heart was captured by her face; 



I loved her at first sight : 

 'Sweet maid/ I whispered, 'let me be 



Your own true chosen knight.' 



And then I tried to find my queen, 



I sought her near and far; 

 Her pictured face shone on my path 



And was my guiding star. 



But oh, how can I tell the grief. 



The bitter grief to me, 

 When I found out beyond a doubt, 



There wasn't any she! 



For this sweet picture that I loved 



(Kind reader, do not laugh!) 

 Turned out to be a very good 



Composite photograph! 



And the fair girl whose pensive eyes 



Had made my pulses stir, 

 Did not exist, or rather there 



Were forty-nine of her ! 



One woman's face was in my mind — 



How could I then divine 

 That I, while faithful to one love, 



Was true to forty nine? 



Oh Science ! You have done this thing, 



On you I lay the guilt ; 

 You've made my honest love appear 



Like any crazy quilt! 



And this one thing I ask of you, — 



Can you, with all your art, 

 Un'te these forty-nine poor bits 



And give me back my heart? 



Bessie Chandler, in the Ceyitury for April. 



* SeeCcmjosite Photography, in The Century, for March. 



