There's a reprobate looseness about you;
Should I wear you to-night, I believe,
As I come with my bride from the altar,
You'd laugh in your wicked old sleeve,
When you felt there the tremulous pressure
Of her hand, in its delicate glove,
That is telling me shyly, but proudly,
Her trust is as deep as her love.

So, go to your grave in the wardrobe,
And furnish a feast for the moth,
Nell's glove shall betray its sweet secrets
To younger, more innocent cloth.
'Tis time to put on your successor―
It's made in a fashion that's new;
Old coat, I'm afraid it will never
Sit as easily on me as you.

George A. Baker.

MY WOOING

NE evening, many months ago,
We two conversed together;

ON

It must have been in June or so,

For sultry was the weather.

The waving branches made the ground
With lights and shadows quiver;
We sat upon a grassy mound

That overhung a river.

We thought, as you've perhaps inferred, Our destinies of linking:

But neither of us spoke a word,

For each of us was thinking.
Her ma had lands at Skibbereen,
Her pa estates in Devon;
And she was barely seventeen,
And I was thirty-seven.

We gathered blossoms from the bank,
And in the water flung them:
We watched them as they rose and sank
With flakes of foam among them.
As towards the falls in mimic race
They sailed-these heads of clover-
We watched them quicken in their pace,
We watched them tumble over.

We watched them; and our calm repose
Seemed calmer for their troubles;
We watched them as they sank and rose
And battled with the bubbles.
We noticed then a little bird,
Down at the margin, drinking:
But neither of us spoke a word,
For each of us was thinking.

At length I thought I fairly might
Declare my passion frantic:
(The scenery, I'm sure, was quite
Sufficiently romantic.)

I'd heard a proverb short and quaint
My memory-though shady-
Informed me it began with "faint,"
And finished up with "lady."

I summoned then the pluck to speak:
(I felt I'd have to, one day,
I only saw her once a week,
And this was only Monday.)
I called her angel, duck, and dove,
I said I loved her dearly,

My words the whisperings of Love-
Were eloquent, or nearly.

I told her that my heart was true,
And constant as the river:

I said, "I'll love you as I do,

'For ever and for ever!'

Oh! let me hear that voice divine-"
I stopped a bit and listened;

I murmured then, "Be mine, be mine,"
She said, "I won't!"-and isn't.

Edwin Hamilton.

WINTRY PARIS

H, the dingy winter days!

Oh, the woven blues and greys!

Oh, the drizzles and the puddles and the freezing!

Nippy Paris to New York

Is a sinker to a cork

Superstition and tradition all her pleasing.

Oh, the glacial Gallic gloom

In a candle-darkened room

Sends the spirit of a Gothamite to zero When I found the fire dead

And sped shuddering to bed.

How I longed to dream of burning Rome and Nero!

Don't believe them when they say

The Parisians all are gay;

Not a capital where gaiety so rare is.

Why, I positively think

My Manhattan blues are pink

When contrasted with the blues I had in Paris.

Anonymous.

M

THE ROSE

Y Lilla gave me yestermorn
A rose, methinks in Eden born,
And as she gave it, little elf!
She blush'd like any rose herself.
Then said I, full of tenderness,

66

'Since this sweet rose I owe to you,
Dear girl, why may I not possess
The lovelier Rose that gave it too?"

Anonymous.

INDECISION

OI love her?

D°

Dimpling red lips at me pouting,
Dimpling shoulders at me flouting;

No, I don't!

Do I love her?

'Prisoned in those crystal eyes

Purity forever lies;
Yes, I do!

Do I love her?

Little, wild and wilful fiction,
Teasing, torturing contradiction;
No, I don't!

Do I love her?

With kind acts and sweet words she
Aids and comforts poverty;

Yes, I do!

Do I love her?

Quick she puts her cuirass on,
Stabs with laughter, stings with scorn;
No, I don't!

Do I love her?

No! Then to my arms she flies,
Filling me with glad surprise;

Ah, yes I do!

Anonymous.