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A GAME OF CHESS.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

I.

ERRACE and lawn are white with frost,

Whose fretwork flowers upon the

A mocking dream of summer, lost

'Mid winter's icy chains.

panes

II.

White-hot, indoors, the great logs gleam,

Veiled by a flickering flame of blue:

I see my love as in a dream—

Her eyes are azure, too.

III.

She binds her hair behind her ears

(Each little ear so like a shell), Touches her ivory Queen, and fears She is not playing well.

106

A GAME OF CHESS.

IV.

For me, I think of nothing less:

I think how those pure pearls become her-

And which is sweetest, winter chess

Or garden strolls in summer.

V.

O linger, frost, upon the pane!

O faint blue flame, still softly rise!

O dear one, thus with me remain,

That I may watch thine eyes!

AD CHLOEN, M. A.,

Fresh from her Cambridge Examination.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

DADY, very fair are you,

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And your eyes are very blue,—
-And your hose ;-

And brow is like the snow,

your

And the various things you know

Goodness knows.

And the rose-flush on your cheek,

And your Algebra and Greek

Perfect are;

And that loving lustrous eye

Recognises in the sky

Every star.

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If by an arrangement dual

I were Adams mixed with Whewell,

Then some day

I, as wooer, perhaps might come

To so sweet an Artium

Magistra.

CHLOE, M. A.,

Ad amantem suum.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

ARELESS rhymer! it is true

That my favourite colour's blue:

But am I

To be made a victim, sir,

If to puddings I prefer

Cambridge ?

If with giddier girls I play

Croquet through the summer day

On the turf,

Then at night ('tis no great boon)

Let me study how the moon

Sways the surf.

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