Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,
Treasure my lady's lightest footfall!
-Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces--
Roses, you are not so fair after all!

Robert Browning.

A POEM OF EVERY-DAY LIFE

E tore him from the merry throng
Within the billiard hall;

HE

He was gotten up regardlessly

To pay his party call.

His thoughts were dire and dark within,
Discourteous to fate:

"Ah, me! these social debts incurred
Are hard to liquidate.'

His boots were slender, long and trim;
His collar tall and swell;

His hats were made by Dunlap,
And his coats were cut by Bell;
A symphony in black and white,
"Of our set" the pride,
Yet he lingered on his way—
He would that he had died.

His feet caressed the lonely way,
The pave gave forth no sound;
They seemed in pitying silence clothed
West-End-ward he was bound.

He approached the mansion stealthily,
The step looked cold and chill;
He glanced into the vestibule,
But all was calm and still.

He fingered nervously the bell,
His card-case in his hand;
He saw the mirror in the hall-
Solemn, stately, grand.
Suddenly his spirits rose;

The drawing-room looked dim;
The menial filled his soul with joy
With "No, there's no one in."

With fiendish glee he stole away;
His heart was gay and light,
Happy that he went and paid
His party call that night.

His steps turned to the billiard hall,
Blissfully he trod;

He entered: "What, returned so soon?"
Replied: "She's out, thank God!"

Sixteen cues were put to rest
Within their upright beds,

And sixteen different tiles were placed
On sixteen level heads;

Sixteen men upon the street
In solid phalanx all,

And sixteen men on duty bent

Το

pay their

party call.

When the fairest of her sex came home
At early dawn, I ween,

She slowly looked the cards all out—
They numbered seventeen.

With calm relief she raised her eyes,
Filled with grateful light,

"Oh, merciful Fate, look down and see

What I've escaped this night!"

Albert Riddle.

LOVE DISPOSED OF

ERE goes Love! Now cut him clear,

HER A weight about his neck:

If he linger longer here,

Our ship will be a wreck.
Overboard! Overboard!
Down let him go!

In the deep he may sleep
Where the corals grow.

He said he'd woo the gentle breeze,
A bright tear in her eye;

But she was false or hard to please,
Or he has told a lie.

Overboard! overboard!

He

sang us many a merry song
While the breeze was kind;
But he has been lamenting long

The falseness of the wind.
Overboard! overboard!

Under the wave

Let him sing where smooth shells ring
In the ocean's cave.

He may struggle; he may weep;
We'll be stern and cold;

His grief will find, within the deep,
More tears than can be told.

He has gone overboard!

We will float on;

We shall find a truer wind,

Now that he is gone.

Robert Traill Spence Lowell.

F

MABEL, IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

AIREST of the fairest, rival of the rose,
That is Mabel of the Hills, as everybody
knows.

Do you ask me near what stream this sweet floweret grows?

That's an ignorant question, sir, as everybody

knows.

Ask you what her age is, reckoned as time goes? Just the age of beauty, as everybody knows.

Is she tall as Rosalind, standing on her toes?
She is just the perfect height, as everybody knows.

What's the color of her eyes, when they ope or close?

Just the color they should be, as everybody knows.

Is she lovelier dancing, or resting in repose?
Both are radiant pictures, as everybody knows.

Do her ships go sailing on every wind that blows? She is richer far than that, as everybody knows.

Has she scores of lovers, heaps of bleeding beaux ? That question's quite superfluous, as everybody knows.

I could tell you something, if I only chose!—
But what's the use of telling what everybody

knows?

James Thomas Fields.