TO MRS. LEIGH UPON HER
WEDDING-DAY
7HILE all to this auspicious day
Well pleased their heartfelt homage pay
And sweetly smile and softly say
A hundred civic speeches;
My Muse shall strike her tuneful strings,
Nor scorn the gift her duty brings,
Tho' humble be the theme she sings,-
A pair of shooting breeches.
Soon shall the tailor's subtle art
Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart,
And fastened well in every part
With twenty thousand stitches;
Mark then the moral of my song,
Oh, may your lives but prove as strong,
And wear as well, and last as long,
As these, my shooting breeches.
And when, to ease the load of life,
Of private care, and public strife,
My lot shall give to me a wife,
I ask not rank or riches;
For worth like thine alone I pray,
Temper like thine serene and gay,
And formed like thee to give away,
Not wear herself, the breeches.
ASKED my fair, one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay;
By what sweet name from Rome or Greece Lalage, Neæra, Chloris,
Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,
Arethusa or Lucrece.
Ah!" replied my gentle fair,
Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose you whatever suits the line;
Call me Daphne, call me Chloris,
Call me Lalage or Doris,
Only, only call me thine."
WE pledged our hearts, my love and I,-
I in my arms the maiden clasping:
I could not tell the reason why,
But oh! I trembled like an aspen.
Her father's love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
Samuel T. Coleridge.
ATCH her and hold her if
See, she defies you with her fan,
Shuts, opens, and then holds it spread
In threatening guise above your head.
Ah! why did you not start before
She reached the porch and closed the door?
Simpleton! will you never learn
That girls and time will not return;
Of each you should have made the most;
Once gone, they are forever lost.
In vain your knuckles knock your brow,
In vain will you remember how
Like a slim brook the gamesome maid
Sparkled, and ran into the shade.
FTEN I have heard it said
That her lips are ruby-red.
Little heed I what they say,
I have seen as red as they.
Ere she smiled on other men,
Real rubies were they then.
When she kiss'd me once in play,
Rubies were less bright than they,
And less bright were those that shone
In the palace of the Sun.
Will they be as bright again?
Not if kiss'd by other men.
AKING my walk the other day,
I saw a little girl at play,
So pretty, 'twould not be amiss,
Thought I, to venture on a kiss.
Fiercely the little girl began-
"I wonder at you, nasty man!"
And all four fingers were applied,
And crimson pinafore beside,
To wipe what venom might remain,-
" Do if you dare the like again;
I have a mind to teach you better,'
And I too had a mind to let her.
ARGARET'S beauteous-Grecian arts
Ne'er drew form completer,
Yet why, in my heart of hearts,
Hold I Dora's sweeter?
Dora's eyes of heavenly blue
Pass all paintings' reach,
Ringdove's notes are discord to
The music of her speech.
Artists Margaret's smile receive,
And on canvas show it;
But for perfect worship leave
Dora to her poet.
HERE'S a certain young lady,
Who's just in her heyday,
And full of all mischief, I ween;
So teasing! so pleasing!
Capricious! delicious!
With an eye dark as night,
Yet than noonday more bright,
Was ever a black eye so keen?
It can thrill with a glance,
With a beam can entrance,
And you know very
well whom I mean.
With a stately step—such as
You'd expect in a duchess
And a brow might distinguish a queen,
With a mighty proud air,
That says touch me who dare,"
And you know very
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