LOVE,

THE LAST DITCH

OVE, through your varied views on Art
Untiring have I followed you,
Content to know I had your heart

And was your Art-ideal, too.

As, dear, I was when first we met.

('Twas at the time you worshipped Leighton, And were attempting to forget

Your Foster and your Noel Paton.)

"Love rhymes with Art," said your dear voice, And, at my crude, uncultured age,

I could but blushingly rejoice

That you had passed the Rubens stage.

When Madox Brown and Morris swayed
Your taste, did I not dress and look
Like any Middle Ages maid

In an illuminated book?

I wore strange garments, without shame,
Of formless form and toneless tones,
I might have stepped out of the frame
Of a Rossetti or Burne-Jones.

I stole soft frills from Marcus Stone,
My waist wore Herkomer's disguise,
My slender purse was strained, I own,
But my silk lay as Sargent's lies.

And when you were abroad-in Prague-
'Mid Cherets I had shone, a star;
Then for your sake I grew as vague
As Mr. Whistler's ladies are.

But now at last you sue in vain,
For here a life's submission ends:
Not even for you will I grow plain
As Aubrey Beardsley's "lady friends.”

Here I renounce your hand-unless
You find your Art-ideal elsewhere;
I will not wear the kind of dress

That Laurence Housman's people wear!

E. Nesbit.

BE YE IN LOVE WITH APRIL-TIDE

E ye in love with April-tide?

BE

I' faith, in love am I!

For now 'tis sun, and now 'tis shower,
And now 'tis frost, and now 'tis flower,

And now 'tis Laura laughing-eyed,
And now 'tis Laura shy!

Ye doubtful days, O slower glide!
Still smile and frown, O sky!
Some beauty unforeseen I trace
In every change of Laura's face;—
Be ye in love with April-tide?

I' faith, in love am I!

Clinton Scollard.

STRAWBERRIES

GAIN the year is at the prime

AG

With flush of rose and cuckoo-croon; Care doffs his wrinkled air, and Time Foots to a gamesome tune.

So, ho, my lads, an' if you will
But follow underneath the hill,
It's strawberries! strawberries!
You shall feast, and have your fill!

The elder clusters promise wine
Where dips the path along the lane;
The early lowing of the kine

Floats in a far refrain;

You will forget to dream indeed
Of fruit that Georgian loam-lands breed
In strawberries! strawberries!

That wait for us in Martin's mead.

Then haste, before the sun be high,
And, haply, catch the morning star;
For, ere the cups of dew be dry,
The berries sweetest are.

And if, perchance, a rustic lass
In merriment a-milking pass,
It's strawberries! strawberries!
On her lips as in the grass.

Clinton Scollard.

APPLIED ASTRONOMY

E took me out to see the stars,
That astronomic bore;

HE

He said there were two moons near Mars, While Jupiter had four.

I thought of course he'd whisper soon
What fourfold bliss 'twould be

To stroll beneath that fourfold moon
On Jupiter with me.

And when he spoke of Saturn's ring,
I was convinced he'd say
That was the very kind of thing
To offer me some day.

But in a tangent off he went
To double stars. Now that

Was most suggestive, so content
And quite absorbed I sat.

But no, he talked a dreary mess,
Of which the only fraction
That caught my fancy, I confess,
Was "mutual attraction."

I said I thought it very queer
And stupid altogether,

For stars to keep so very near,

And yet not come together.

At that he smiled, and turned his head;
I thought he'd caught the notion.
He merely bowed good-night and said,
Their safety lay in motion.

Esther B. Tiffany.

I'

COURTSHIP

T chanced, they say, upon a day,
A furlong from the town,

That she was strolling up the way
As he was strolling down-

She humming low, as might be so,
A ditty sweet and small;

He whistling loud a tune, you know,
That had no tune at all.

It happened so-precisely so―

As all their friends and neighbours know.

As I and you perhaps might do,

They gazed upon the ground;
But when they'd gone a yard or two
Of course they both looked round.
They both were pained, they both explained
What caused their eyes to roam;
And nothing after that remained

But he should see her home.

It happened so-precisely so

As all their friends and neighbours know.