Now, my dainty little sprite,
Have I taught your lesson right?
Then what pay shall I receive?
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Will you think me overbold
If I linger to be told
Whether you yourself believe
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Pretty pupil, when you say
All this French to me to-day,
Do
you mean it, or deceive?
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Tell me, may I understand,
When I press your little hand,
That our hearts together cleave?
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Have you in your tresses room
For some orange-buds to bloom?
May I such a garland weave?
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Or, if I presume too much Teaching French by sense of touch, Grant me pardon and reprieve! Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Sweetheart, no! you cannot go!
Let me sit and hold you so;
Adam did the same to Eve,-
Aimer, aimer; c'est à vivre.

Theodore Tilton.

ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA

`HE cunning hand that carved this face,

THE

A little helmeted Minerva—

The hand, I say, ere Phidias wrought,

Had lost its subtle skill and fervour.

Who was he? Was he glad or sad?

Who knew to carve in such a fashion?

Perchance he shaped this dainty head
For some brown girl that scorned his passion.

But he is dust: we may not know

His happy or unhappy story:
Nameless and dead these thousand years,
His work outlives him-there's his glory!

Both man and jewel lay in earth
Beneath a lava-buried city;

The thousand summers came and went,
With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity.

The years wiped out the man, but left
The jewel fresh as any blossom.

Till some Visconti dug it

up,

To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom.

O Roman brother! see how Time
Your gracious handiwork has guarded;
See how your loving, patient art

Has come, at last, to be rewarded.

Who would not suffer slights of men
And pangs of hopeless passion also,
To have his carven agate-stone

A

On such a bosom rise and fall so!

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

THE LUNCH

GOTHIC window, where a damask curtain Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain:

A slab of agate ore four Eagle-talons

Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance:
A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cluster
Black grapes hung down, dead ripe and without
lustre:

A melon cut in thin, delicious slices:

A cake that seemed mosaic-work in spices:
Two China cups with golden tulips sunny,
And rich inside with chocolate like honey:
And she and I the banquet-scene completing
With dreamy words—and very pleasant eating.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

66

THE WITCH IN THE GLASS

Y mother says I must not pass
Too near that glass;

"MY

She is afraid that I will see
A little witch that looks like me,
With a red, red mouth to whisper low
The very thing I should not know!"

"Alack for all your mother's care!
A bird of the air,

A wistful wind, or (I suppose)
Sent by some hapless boy-a rose,
With breath too sweet, will whisper low
The very thing you should not know!"

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt.

"G

TO PHOEBE

ENTLE, modest, little flower,
Sweet epitome of May,

Love me but for half-an-hour,
Love me, love me, little Fay."
Sentences so fiercely flaming
In your tiny shell-like ear,
I should always be exclaiming,
If I loved you, Phœbe, dear!

"Smiles that thrill from any distance Shed upon me while I sing! Please ecstaticise existence;

Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!"
Words like these, outpouring sadly,
You'd perpetually hear,

If I loved you, fondly, madly;—
But I do not, Phoebe, dear!

William Schwenck Gilbert.

MY LOVE AND MY HEART

H, the days were ever shiny

OH

When I ran to meet my love;
When I press'd her hand so tiny
Through her tiny tiny glove.
Was I very deeply smitten?
Oh, I loved like anything!
But my love she is a kitten,
And my heart's a ball of tring.

She was pleasingly poetic,

And she loved my little rhymes;
For our tastes were sympathetic,
In the old and happy times.
Oh, the ballads I have written,

And have taught my love to sing!

But my love she is a kitten,

And my heart's a ball of string.